THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 

GIFT  OF 

FREDERIC  THOMAS  BLANCHARD 

FOR  THE 
ENGLISH  READING  ROOM 


*'  THE  BRILLIANT  COMPANY  WAS  AHRANGKD  ABOUT  THE  BOARD  " 


A  House-Boat  on 

the  Styx 

Being  Some  Account  of  the  Divers  Doings  of 
the  Associated  Shades 

By 

John    Kendrick   Bangs 
Illustrated 


New    York    and    London 

Harper    &     Brothers 

Publishers      1902 


N 


Copyright,  1895,  by  HARPER  &  BROTHERS. 
All  rights  reserved. 


HS 

1064- 

63k 

1102. 


TO 
HENRY    LOOMIS  NELSON 

THROUGH  WHOSE  ACQUIESCENCE  THESE  PAPERS  WERE  FIRST 
INFLICTED    DPON   A    LONG-SUFFERING   PUBLIC 

Is  ISEfcfcateto 

WITH    THE    HOPE    THAT    IT    MAY    BE    SOME    WEEKS 

BEFORE    HE    BECOMES   ELIGIBLE    FOR    MEMBERSHIP    AMONG 

THE   ASSOCIATED   SHADES 


CONTENTS 


CHAP. 


PAGE 


I.  CHARON  MAKES  A  DISCOVERY      ...        1 

II.  A  DISPUTED   AUTHORSHIP 15 

III.  WASHINGTON   GIVES  A  DINNER   ...      27 

IV.  HAMLET  MAKES  A  SUGGESTION    ...      48 

V.  THE    HOUSE   COMMITTEE   DISCUSS    THE 

POETS 57 

VI.  SOME  THEORIES,  DARWINIAN  AND  OTH 
ERWISE        .      ,      -  ....  70 

VII.  A   DISCUSSION   AS  TO  LADIES'  DAY    .      .      84 

VIII.  A  DISCONTENTED  SHADE 97 

IX.  AS  TO  COOKERY  AND  SCULPTURE    .      .113 

x.  STORY-TELLERS'  NIGHT 126 

XI.  AS  TO  SAURIANS  AND  OTHERS     .      .      .    141 

XIL  THE  HOUSE-BOAT  DISAPPEARS     .  .    156 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


"  THE  BRILLIANT  COMPANY  WAS  ARRANGED 

ABOUT  THE  BOARD" Frontispiece 

CHARON  DISCOVERS  A  STRANGE-LOOKING 

CRAFT Facinripage  2 

CHARON  IS  RECEIVED  BY  THE  HOCSE 

COMMITTEE "  "10 

"  '  GOOD  SHOT,'  SAID  DOCTOR  JOHNSON, 

NONCHALANTLY" "  "20 

"  LORD  BACON,  ACCOMPANIED  BY  CHARON, 

APPEARED  " "  "24 

"AN  ORCHESTRA  OF  FIVE,  UNDER  THE  LEAD 
ERSHIP  OF  MOZART,  DISCOURSED  SWEET 

MUSIC" "          "30 

DOCTOR  JOHNSON  IN  A  RAGE  ....  "  "48 
"THE  MELANCHOLY  DANE  APPEARED".  .  "  "  52 
EJECTING  A  FRENZIED  POET  FROM  THE 

CARD-ROOM "  "58 

THE  HOUSE-COMMITTEE  DISCUSS  THE  POETS  "  "  64 
"  '  AND  I  TOO,'  PUT  IN  BARON  MUNCHAU- 

SEN,  'HAVE  FREQUENTLY  CONVERSED 

WITH  MONKEYS  '"...,  .     "      "70 


Vlll  ILLUSTRATIONS 

"  '  BOY,  IS  ADAM  IN  THE  CLUB-HOUSE  TO 
DAY  ?'"  Facing  page  80 

SIR  WALTER  RALEIGH  MEETING  QUEEN 

ELIZABETH "  "84 

LUCRETIA  BORGIA  AND  DELILAH  WERE 

NOT  INVITED "  "96 

"  '  WHAT  IS  THE  AVERAGE  WEIGHT  OP  A 
COPY  OF  "  PUNCH  "  ?'  DRAWLED  AR- 
TEMAS  WARD" "  "  100 

SHAKESPEARE  AS  A  SUBURBAN  RESIDENT  .      "      "    106 

PHIDIAS  SEES  "A  LIFE-SIZE  STATUE  OP 
THE  INVENTOR  OF  A  NEW  KIND  OF 
LARD" "  "120 

"PHIDIAS  MODELLED  A  BEAUTIFUL  HEAD 

OF  MINERVA" "  "  124 

"GOLDSMITH,  PALE  WITH  FEAR,  RISES  TO 

SPEAK" "  "130 

WELLINGTON  PULLS  BONAPARTE'S  CAMP- 
CHAIR  FROM  UNDER  HIM  ....  "  "134 

"  '  I'D  LIKE  MIGHTILY  TO  HAVE  YOU  EX 
PLAIN  YOUR  STATEMENT,  MR.  BAR- 

NUM1" "          "     144 

"  '  PAPA  IS  RIGHT  ABOUT  THAT,  MR.  BAR- 

NUM,' SAID  SHEM" "  "  148 

THE  FAIR  STROLLERS "  "  166 

"IT  WAS  CAPTAIN  KIDD  AND  HIS  PIRATE 

CREW"  .  "      "    168 


A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON 

THE    STYX 


CHARON   MAKES    A    DISCOVERY 

CHARON,  the  Ferryman  of  renown,  was 
cruising  slowly  along  the  Styx  one  pleasant 
Friday  morning  not  long  ago,  and  as  he 
paddled  idly  on  he  chuckled  mildly  to  him 
self  as  he  thought  of  the  monopoly  in  fer 
riage  which  in  the  course  of  years  he  had 
managed  to  build  up. 

"It's  a  great  thing,"  he  said,  with  a 
smirk  of  satisfaction — "it's  a  great  thing 
to  be  the  go-between  between  two  states 

of  being ;  to  have  the  exclusive  franchise 
i 


2  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

to  export  and  import  shades  from  one  state 
to  the  other,  and  withal  to  have  had  as 
clean  a  record  as  mine  has  been.  Valu 
able  as  is  my  franchise,  I  never  corrupted 
a  public  official  in  my  life,  and — " 

Here  Charon  stopped  his  soliloquy  and 
his  boat  simultaneously.  As  he  rounded 
one  of  the  many  turns  in  the  river  a  sin 
gular  object  met  his  gaze,  and  one,  too, 
that  filled  him  with  misgiving.  It  was 
another  craft,  and  that  was  a  thing  not  to 
be  tolerated.  Had  he,  Charon,  owned  the 
exclusive  right  of  way  on  the  Styx  all  these 
years  to  have  it  disputed  here  in  the  clos 
ing  decade  of  the  Nineteenth  Century? 
Had  not  he  dealt  satisfactorily  with  all, 
whether  it  was  in  the  line  of  ferriage  or  in 
the  providing  of  boats  for  pleasure-trips 
up  the  river?  Had  he  not  received  ex 
pressions  of  satisfaction,  indeed,  from  the 
most  exclusive  families  of  Hades  with  the 
very  select  series  of  picnics  he  had  given  at 
Charon's  Glen  Island?  No  wonder,  then, 
that  the  queer -looking  boat  that  met  his 
gaze,  moored  in  a  shady  nook  on  the 


CHARON    MAKES    A    DISCOVERY  3 

dark  side  of  the  river,  filled  him  with  dis 
may. 

"Blow  me  for  a  landlubber  if  I  like 
that !"  he  said,  in  a  hardly  audible  whisper. 
"  And  shiver  my  timbers  if  I  don't  find 
out  what  she's  there  for.  If  anybody  thinks 
he  can  run  an  opposition  line  to  mine  on 
this  river  he's  mightily  mistaken.  If  it 
comes  to  competition,  I  can  carry  shades 
for  nothing  and  still  quaff  the  B.  &  Gr. 
yellow-label  benzine  three  times  a  day 
without  experiencing  a  financial  panic. 
I'll  show  'em  a  thing  or  two  if  they  at 
tempt  to  rival  me.  And  what  a  boat !  It 
looks  for  all  the  world  like  a  Florentine 
barn  on  a  canal -boat." 

Charon  paddled  up  to  the  side  of  the 
craft,  and,  standing  up  in  the  middle  of  his 
boat,  cried  out, 

"  Ship  ahoy !" 

There  was  no  answer,  and  the  Ferryman 
hailed  her  again.  Receiving  no  response 
to  his  second  call, he  resolved  to  investigate 
for  himself ;  so,  fastening  his  own  boat  to 
the  stern-post  of  the  stranger,  he  clambered 


4  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

on  board.  If  he  was  astonished  as  he  sat 
in  his  ferry-boat,  he  was  paralyzed  when 
he  cast  his  eye  over  the  unwelcome  vessel 
he  had  boarded.  He  stood  for  at  least 
two  minutes  rooted  to  the  spot.  His  eye 
swept  over  a  long,  broad  deck,  the  polish 
of  which  resembled  that  of  a  ball -room 
floor.  Amidships,  running  from  three- 
quarters  aft  to  three-quarters  forward, 
stood  a  structure  that  in  its  lines  resembled, 
as  Charon  had  intimated,  a  barn,  designed 
by  an  architect  enamoured  of  Florentine 
simplicity ;  but  in  its  construction  the  rich 
est  of  woods  had  been  used,  and  in  its  inte 
rior  arrangement  and  adornment  nothing 
more  palatial  could  be  conceived. 

"  What's  the  blooming  thing  for  ?"  said 
Charon,  more  dismayed  than  ever.  "If 
they  start  another  line  with  a  craft  like 
this,  I'm  very  much  afraid  I'm  done  for 
after  all.  I  wouldn't  take  a  boat  like 
mine  myself  if  there  was  a  floating  palace 
like  this  going  the  same  way.  I'll  have 
to  see  the  Commissioners  about  this,  and 
find  out  what  it  all  means.  I  suppose 


CHARON    MAKES    A    DISCOVERY  5 

it'll  cost  me  a  pretty  penny,  too,  confound 
them !" 

A  prey  to  these  unhappy  reflections, 
Charon  investigated  further,  and  the  more 
he  saw  the  less  he  liked  it.  He  was  about 
to  encounter  opposition,  and  an  opposition 
which  was  apparently  backed  by  persons 
of  great  wealth — perhaps  the  Commission 
ers  themselves.  It  was  a  consoling  thought 
that  he  had  saved  enough  money  in  the 
course  of  his  career  to  enable  him  to  live 
in  comfort  all  his  days,  but  this  was  not 
really  what  Charon  was  after.  He  wished 
to  acquire  enough  to  retire  and  become  one 
of  the  smart  set.  It  had  been  done  in  that 
section  of  the  universe  which  lay  on  the 
bright  side  of  the  Styx,  why  not,  therefore, 
on  the  other,  he  asked. 

"  I'm  pretty  well  connected  even  if  I  am 
a  boatman,"  he  had  been  known  to  say. 
"With  Chaos  for  a  grandfather,  and  Ere 
bus  and  Nox  for  parents,  I've  just  as  good 
blood  in  my  veins  as  anybody  in  Hades. 
The  Noxes  are  a  mighty  fine  family,  not  as 
bright  as  the  Days,  but  older  ;  and  we're 


6  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

poor — that's  it,  poor — and  it's  money  makes 
caste  these  days.  If  I  had  millions,  and 
owned  a  railroad,  they'd  call  me  a  yacht- 
owner.  As  I  haven't,  I'm  only  a  boatman. 
Bah !  Wait  and  see  !  I'll  be  giving  swell 
functions  myself  some  day,  and  these  up 
starts  will  be  on  their  knees  before  me  beg 
ging  to  be  asked.  Then  I'll  get  up  a  little 
aristocracy  of  my  own,  and  I  won't  let  a 
soul  into  it  whose  name  isn't  mentioned 
in  the  Grecian  mythologies.  Mention  in 
Burke's  peerage  and  the  filite  directories 
of  America  won't  admit  anybody  to  Com 
modore  Charon's  house  unless  there's  some 
other  mighty  good  reason  for  it." 

Foreseeing  an  unhappy  ending  to  all  his 
hopes,  the  old  man  clambered  sadly  back 
into  his  ancient  vessel  and  paddled  off  into 
the  darkness.  Some  hours  later,  returning 
with  a  large  company  of  new  arrivals,  while 
counting  up  the  profits  of  the  day  Charon 
again  caught  sight  of  the  new  craft,  and 
saw  that  it  was  brilliantly  lighted  and 
thronged  with  the  most  famous  citizens  of 
the  Erebean  country.  Up  in  the  bow  was 


CHARON    MAKES    A    DISCOVERY  7 

a  spirit  band  discoursing  music  of  the 
sweetest  sort.  Merry  peals  of  laughter 
rang  out  over  the  dark  waters  of  the  Styx. 
The  clink  of  glasses  and  the  popping  of 
corks  punctuated  the  music  with  a  fre 
quency  which  would  have  delighted  the 
soul  of  the  most  ardent  lover  of  commas, 
all  of  which  so  overpowered  the  grand 
master  boatman  of  the  Stygian  Ferry  Com 
pany  that  he  dropped  three  oboli  and  an 
American  dime,  which  he  carried  as  a  pock 
et-piece,  overboard.  This,  of  course,  added 
to  his  woe ;  but  it  was  forgotten  in  an  in 
stant,  for  some  one  on  the  new  boat  had 
turned  a  search-light  directly  upon  Charon 
himself,  and  simultaneously  hailed  the  mas 
ter  of  the  ferry-boat. 

"  Charon  !"  cried  the  shade  in  charge  of 
the  light.  "  Charon,  ahoy  !" 

"  Ahoy  yourself !"  returned  the  old  man, 
paddling  his  craft  close  up  to  the  stranger. 
"  What  do  you  want  ?" 

"  You,"  said  the  shade.  "  The  house 
committee  want  to  see  you  right  away." 

"What  for?"  asked  Charon,  cautiously. 


8  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

"I'm  sure  I  don't  know.  I'm  only  a 
member  of  the  club,  and  house  committees 
never  let  mere  members  know  anything 
about  their  plans.  All  I  know  is  that  you 
are  wanted,"  said  the  other. 

"  Who  are  the  house  committee  ?"  que 
ried  the  Ferryman. 

"Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  Cassius,  Demos 
thenes,  Blackstone,  Doctor  Johnson,  and 
Confucius,"  replied  the  shade. 

"  Tell  'em  I'll  be  back  in  an  hour,"  said 
Charon,  pushing  off.  "I've  got  a  cargo 
of  shades  on  board  consigned  to  various 
places  up  the  river.  I've  promised  to  get 
'em  all  through  to-night,  but  I'll  put  on  a 
couple  of  extra  paddles — two  of  the  new 
arrivals  are  working  their  passage  this 
trip — and  it  won't  take  as  long  as  usual. 
What  boat  is  this,  anyhow?" 

"  The  Nancy  Nbx,  of  Erebus." 

"  Thunder  !"  cried  Charon,  as  he  pushed 
off  and  proceeded  on  his  way  up  the  river. 
"  Named  after  my  mother  !  Perhaps  it'll 
come  out  all  right  yet." 

More  hopeful  of  mood,  Charon,  aided  by 


CHARON    MAKES    A    DISCOVERY  9 

the  two  dead -head  passengers,  soon  got 
through  with  his  evening's  work,  and  in 
less  than  an  hour  was  back  seeking  admit 
tance,  as  requested,  to  the  company  of  Sir 
Walter  Raleigh  and  his  fellow -members 
on  the  house  committee.  He  was  received 
by  these  worthies  with  considerable  effu 
siveness,  considering  his  position  in  soci 
ety,  and  it  warmed  the  cockles  of  his  aged 
heart  to  note  that  Sir  Walter,  who  had  al 
ways  been  rather  distant  to  him  since  he 
had  carelessly  upset  that  worthy  and  Queen 
Elizabeth  in  the  middle  of  the  Styx  far 
back  in  the  last  century,  permitted  him  to 
shake  three  fingers  of  his  left  hand  when 
he  entered  the  committee-room. 

"  How  do  you  do,  Charon  ?"  said  Sir 
Walter,  affably.  "  We  are  very  glad  to 
see  you." 

"  Thank  you,  kindly,  Sir  Walter,"  said 
the  boatman.  "I'm  glad  to  hear  those 
words,  your  honor,  for  I've  been  feeling 
very  bad  since  I  had  the  misfortune  to 
drop  your  Excellency  and  her  Majesty 
overboard.  I  never  knew  how  it  hap- 


10  A   HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

pened,  sir,  but  happen  it  did,  and  but  for 
her  Majesty's  kind  assistance  it  might  have 
been  the  worse  for  us.  Eh,  Sir  Walter?" 

The  knight  shook  his  head  menacingly 
at  Charon.  Hitherto  he  had  managed  to 
keep  it  a  secret  that  the  Queen  had  res 
cued  him  from  drowning  upon  that  occa 
sion  by  swimming  ashore  herself  first  and 
throwing  Sir  Walter  her  ruff  as  soon  as 
she  landed,  which  he  had  used  as  a  life- 
preserver. 

" 'Sh  !"  he  said,  sotto  voce.  "Don't  say 
anything  about  that,  my  man." 

"  Very  well,  Sir  Walter,  I  won't,"  said 
the  boatman ;  but  he  made  a  mental  note 
of  the  knight's  agitation,  and  perceived  a 
means  by  which  that  illustrious  courtier 
could  be  made  useful  to  him  in  his  schem 
ing  for  social  advancement. 

"  I  understood  you  had  something  to  say 
to  me,"  said  Charon,  after  he  had  greeted 
the  others. 

"We  have,"  said  Sir  Walter.  "We 
want  you  to  assume  command  of  this 
boat." 


CHARON    MAKES    A    DISCOVERY  H 

The  old  fellow's  eyes  lighted  up  with 
pleasure. 

"  You  want  a  captain,  eh  ?"  he  said. 

"  No,"  said  Confucius,  tapping  the  table 
with  a  diamond-studded  chop-stick.  "  No. 
We  want  a — er — what  the  deuce  is  it  they 
call  the  functionary,  Cassius  ?" 

"  Senator,  I  think,"  said  Cassius. 

Demosthenes  gave  a  loud  laugh. 

"  Your  mind  is  still  running  on  Senator- 
ships,  my  dear  Cassius.  That  is  quite  evi 
dent,"  he  said.  "This  is  not  one  of  them, 
however.  The  title  we  wish  Charon  to  as 
sume  is  neither  Captain  nor  Senator ;  it  is 
Janitor." 

"What's  that?"  asked  Charon,  a  little 
disappointed.  "  What  does  a  Janitor  have 
to  do  ?" 

"He  has  to  look  after  things  in  the 
house,"  explained  Sir  Walter.  "  He's  a 
sort  of  proprietor  by  proxy.  We  want  you 
to  take  charge  of  the  house,  and  see  to  it 
that  the  boat  is  kept  shipshape." 

"  Where  is  the  house  ?"  queried  the  as 
tonished  boatman. 


12  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

"This  is  it,"  said  Sir  Walter.  "This  is 
the  house,  and  the  boat  too.  In  fact,  it  is  a 
house-boat." 

"Then  it  isn't  a  new-fangled  scheme  to 
drive  me  out  of  business?"  said  Charon, 
warily. 

"  Not  at  all,"  returned  Sir  Walter.  "It's 
a  new-fangled  scheme  to  set  you  up  in 
business.  We'll  pay  you  a  large  salary, 
and  there  won't  be  much  to  do.  You  are 
the  best  man  for  the  place,  because,  while 
you  don't  know  much  about  houses,  you 
do  know  a  great  deal  about  boats,  and  the 
boat  part  is  the  most  important  part  of  a 
house -boat.  If  the  boat  sinks,  you  can't 
save  the  house  ;  but  if  the  house  burns,  you 
may  be  able  to  save  the  boat.  See  ?" 

"  I  think  I  do,  sir,"  said  Charon. 

"Another  reason  why  we  want  to  em 
ploy  you  for  Janitor,"  said  Confucius,  "is 
that  our  club  wants  to  be  in  direct  com 
munication  with  both  sides  of  the  Styx ; 
and  we  think  you  as  Janitor  would  be  able 
to  make  better  arrangements  for  transpor 
tation  with  yourself  as  boatman,  than  some 


CHARON    MAKES    A    DISCOVERY  13 

other  man  as  Janitor  could  make  with 
you." 

"  Spoken  like  a  sage,"  said  Demosthenes. 

"  Furthermore,"  said  Cassius, "  occasion 
ally  we  shall  want  to  have  this  boat  towed 
up  or  down  the  river,  according  to  the 
house  committee's  pleasure,  and  we  think 
it  would  be  well  to  have  a  Janitor  who 
has  some  influence  with  the  towing  com 
pany  which  you  represent." 

"  Can't  this  boat  be  moved  without  tow 
ing  ?"  asked  Charon. 

"  No,"  said  Cassius. 

"And  I'm  the  only  man  who  can  tow  it. 
eh  ?" 

"You  are,"  said  Blackstone.  "Worse 
luck." 

"And  you  want  me  to  be  Janitor  on  a 
salary  of  what  ?" 

"A  hundred  oboli  a  month,"  said  Sir 
Walter,  uneasily. 

"Very  well,  gentlemen,"  said  Charon. 
"I'll  accept  the  office  on  a  salary  of  two 
hundred  oboli  a  month,  with  Saturdays 
off." 


14  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

The  committee  went  into  executive  ses 
sion  for  five  minutes,  and  on  their  return 
informed  Charon  that  in  behalf  of  the  As 
sociated  Shades  they  accepted  his  offer. 

"  In  behalf  of  what  ?"  the  old  man  asked. 

"  The  Associated  Shades,"  said  Sir  Wal 
ter.  "  The  swellest  organization  in  Hades, 
whose  new  house -boat  you  are  now  on 
board  of.  When  shall  you  be  ready  to 
begin  work  ?" 

"  Right  away,"  said  Charon,  noting  by 
the  clock  that  it  was  the  hour  of  midnight. 
"  I'll  start  in  right  away,  and  as  it  is  now 
Saturday  morning,  I'll  begin  by  taking  my 
day  off." 


II 

A    DISPUTED    AUTHOKSHIP 

"  How  are  you,  Charon  ?"  said  Shake 
speare,  as  the  Janitor  assisted  him  on 
board.  "  Any  one  here  to-night  ?" 

"  Yes,  sir,"  said  Charon.  "  Lord  Bacon 
is  up  in  the  library,  and  Doctor  Johnson  is 
down  in  the  billiard -room,  playing  pool 
with  Nero." 

"Ha-ha!"  laughed  Shakespeare.  "Pool, 
eh  ?  Does  Nero  play  pool  ?" 

"  Not  as  well  as  he  does  the  fiddle,  sir," 
said  the  Janitor,  with  a  twinkle  in  his  eye. 

Shakespeare  entered  the  house  and  tossed 
up  an  obolus.  "  Heads — Bacon  ;  tails — 
pool  with  Nero  and  Johnson,"  he  said. 

The  coin  came  down  with  heads  up,  and 
Shakespeare  went  into  the  pool-room,  just 
to  show  the  Fates  that  he  didn't  care  a 
tuppence  for  their  verdict  as  registered 


16  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

through  the  obolus.  It  was  a  peculiar  cus 
tom  of  Shakespeare's  to  toss  up  a  coin  to 
decide  questions  of  little  consequence,  and 
then  do  the  thing  the  coin  decided  he 
should  not  do.  It  showed,  in  Shakespeare's 
estimation,  his  entii'e  independence  of  those 
dull  persons  who  supposed  that  in  them 
was  centred  the  destiny  of  all  mankind. 
The  Fates,  however,  only  smiled  at  these 
little  acts  of  rebellion,  and  it  was  common 
gossip  in  Erebus  that  one  of  the  trio  had 
told  the  Furies  that  they  had  observed 
Shakespeare's  tendency  to  kick  over  the 
traces,  and  always  acted  accordingly.  They 
never  let  the  coin  fall  so  as  to  decide  a 
question  the  way  they  wanted  it,  so  that 
unwittingly  the  great  dramatist  did  their 
will  after  all.  It  was  a  part  of  their  plan 
that  upon  this  occasion  Shakespeare  should 
play  pool  with  Doctor  Johnson  and  the 
Emperor  Nero,  and  hence  it  was  that  the 
coin  bade  him  repair  to  the  library  and 
chat  with  Lord  Bacon. 

"  Hullo,  William,"  said  the  Doctor,  pock 
eting  three  balls  on  the  break.     "How's 


A    DISPUTED    AUTHORSHIP  17 

our  little  Swanlet  of  Avon  this  after 
noon  ?" 

"  Worn  out,"  Shakespeare  replied.  "  I've 
been  hard  at  work  on  a  play  this  morning, 
and  I'm  tired." 

"All  work  and  no  play  makes  Jack  a 
dull  boy,"  said  Nero,  grinning  broadly. 

"You  are  a  bright  spirit,"  said  Shake 
speare,  with  a  sigh.  "  I  wish  I  had  thought 
to  work  you  up  into  a  tragedy." 

"I've  often  wondered  why  you  didn't," 
said  Doctor  Johnson.  "  He'd  have  made  a 
superb  tragedy,  Nero  would.  I  don't  be 
lieve  there  was  any  kind  of  a  crime  he  left 
uncommitted.  Was  there,  Emperor  ?" 

"Yes.  I  never  wrote  an  English  dic 
tionary,"  returned  the  Emperor,  dryly. 
"I've  murdered  everything  but  English, 
though." 

"  I  could  have  made  a  fine  tragedy  out 
of  you,"  said  Shakespeare.  "Just  think 
what  a  dreadful  climax  for  a  tragedy  it 
would  be,  Johnson,  to  have  Nero,  as  the 
curtain  fell,  playing  a  violin  solo." 

"Pretty  good,"  returned  the  Doctor. 
2 


18  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

"  But  what's  the  use  of  killing  off  your  au 
dience  that  way  ?  It's  better  business  to 
let  'em  live,  I  say.  Suppose  Nero  gave  a 
London  audience  that  little  musicale  he 
provided  at  Queen  Elizabeth's  Wednesday 
night.  How  many  purely  mortal  beings, 
do  you  think,  would  have  come  out  alive  ?" 

"Not  one,"  said  Shakespeare.  "I  was 
mighty  glad  that  night  that  we  were  an 
immortal  band.  If  it  had  been  possible  to 
kill  us  we'd  have  died  then  and  there." 

"  That's  all  right,"  said  Nero,  with  a  sig 
nificant  shake  of  his  head.  "As  my  friend 
Bacon  makes  lago  say,  '  Beware,  my  lord, 
of  jealousy.'  You  never  could  play  a  gar 
den  hose,  much  less  a  fiddle." 

"  What  do  you  mean  by  attributing  those 
words  to  Bacon  ?"  demanded  Shakespeare, 
getting  red  in  the  face. 

"  Oh,  come  now,  William,"  remonstrated 
Nero.  "  It's  all  right  to  pull  the  wool  over 
the  eyes  of  the  mortals.  That's  what  they're 
there  for;  but  as  for  us — we're  all  in  the 
secret  here.  What's  the  use  of  putting  on 
nonsense  with  us  ?", 


A    DISPUTED    AUTHORSHIP  19 

"  We'll  see  in  a  minute  what  the  use  is," 
retorted  the  Avonian.  "  We'll  have  Bacon 
down  here."  Here  he  touched  an  electric 
button,  and  Charon  came  in  answer. 

"  Charon,  bring  Doctor  Johnson  the  usual 
glass  of  ale.  Get  some  ice  for  the  Emper 
or,  and  ask  Lord  Bacon  to  step  down  here 
a  minute." 

"I  don't  want  any  ice,"  said  Nero. 

"  Not  now,"  retorted  Shakespeare,  "  but 
you  will  in  a  few  minutes.  When  we  have 
finished  with  you,  you'll  want  an  iceberg. 
I'm  getting  tired  of  this  idiotic  talk  about 
not  having  written  my  own  works.  There's 
one  thing  about  Nero's  music  that  I've 
never  said,  because  I  haven't  wanted  to 
hurt  his  feelings,  but  since  he  has  chosen  to 
cast  aspersions  upon  my  honesty  I  haven't 
any  hesitation  in  saying  it  now.  I  believe 
it  was  one  of  his  fiddlings  that  sent  Nature 
into  convulsions  and  caused  the  destruction 
of  Pompeii — so  there  !  Put  that  on  your 
music  rack  and  fiddle  it,  my  little  Emper 
or." 

Nero's  face  grew  purple  with  anger,  and 


20  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

if  Shakespeare  had  been  anything  but  a 
shade  he  would  have  fared  ill,  for  the  en 
raged  Roman,  poising  his  cue  on  high  as 
though  it  were  a  lance,  hurled  it  at  the  im 
pertinent  dramatist  with  all  his  strength, 
and  with  such  accuracy  of  aim  withal  that 
it  pierced  the  spot  beneath  which  in  life  the 
heart  of  Shakespeare  used  to  beat. 

"  Good  shot,"  said  Doctor  Johnson,  non 
chalantly.  "If  you  had  been  a  mortal, 
William,  it  would  have  been  the  end  of 
you." 

"You  can't  kill  me,"  said  Shakespeare, 
shrugging  his  shoulders.  "I  know  seven 
dozen  actors  in  the  United  States  who  are 
trying  to  do  it,  but  they  can't.  I  wish  they'd 
try  to  kill  a  critic  once  in  a  while  instead 
of  me,  though,"  he  added.  "  I  went  over 
to  Boston  one  night  last  week,  and,  un 
known  to  anybody,  I  waylaid  a  fellow  who 
was  to  play  Hamlet  that  night.  I  drugged 
him,  and  went  to  the  theatre  and  played 
the  part  myself.  It  was  the  coldest  house 
you  ever  saw  in  your  life.  When  the  au 
dience  did  applaud,  it  sounded  like  an  ice- 


A    DISPUTED    AUTHORSHIP  21 

man  chopping  up  ice  with  a  small  pick. 
Several  times  1  looked  up  at  the  galleries 
to  see  if  there  were  not  icicles  growing  on 
them,  it  was  so  cold.  Well,  I  did  the  best 
I  could  with  the  part,  and  next  morning 
watched  curiously  for  the  criticisms." 

"  Favorable  ?"  asked  the  Doctor. 

"They  all  dismissed  me  with  a  line," 
said  the  dramatist.  "  Said  my  conception 
of  the  part  was  not  Shakespearian.  And 
that's  criticism  !" 

"  No,"  said  the  shade  of  Emerson,  which 
had  strolled  in  while  Shakespeare  was  talk 
ing,  "  that  isn't  criticism  ;  that's  Boston." 

"  Who  discovered  Boston,  anyhow  ?" 
asked  Doctor  Johnson.  "  It  wasn't  Colum 
bus,  was  it  ?" 

"  Oh  no,';  said  Emerson.  "  Old  Governor 
Winthrop  is  to  blame  for  that.  When  he 
settled  at  Charlestown  he  saw  the  old  Ind 
ian  town  of  Shawmut  across  the  Charles." 

"  And  Shawmut  was  the  Boston  microbe, 
was  it?"  asked  Johnson. 

"  Yes,"  said  Emerson. 

"Spelt  with  a  P,  I  suppose  ?"  said  Shake- 


22  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

speare.  "P-S-H-A-W,  Pshaw,  M-U-T, 
raut,  Pshawmut,  so  called  because  the 
inhabitants  are  always  muttering  pshaw. 
Eh?" 

"Pretty  good,"  said  Johnson.  "I  wish 
I'd  said  that." 

"  Well,  tell  Boswell,"  said  Shakespeare. 
"  He'll  make  you  say  it,  and  it'll  be  all  the 
same  in  a  hundred  years." 

Lord  Bacon,  accompanied  by  Charon  and 
the  ice  for  Nero  and  the  ale  for  Doctor 
Johnson,  appeared  as  Shakespeare  spoke. 
The  philosopher  bowed  stiffly  at  Doctor 
Johnson,  as  though  he  hardly  approved  of 
him,  extended  his  left  hand  to  Shakespeare, 
and  stared  coldly  at  Nero. 

"  Did  you  send  for  me,  William  ?"  he 
asked,  languidly. 

"  I  did,"  said  Shakespeare.  "  I  sent  for 
you  because  this  imperial  violinist  here  says 
that  you  wrote  Othello" 

"What  nonsense,"  said  Bacon.  "The 
only  plays  of  yours  I  wrote  were  Ham — " 

"  Sh !"  said  Shakespeare,  shaking  his 
head  madly.  "  Hush.  Nobody's  said  any 


A    DISPUTED    AUTHORSHIP  23 

thing  about  that.  This  is  purely  a  discus 
sion  of  Othello." 

"The  fiddling  ex -Emperor  Nero,"  said 
Bacon,  loudly  enough  to  be  heard  all  about 
the  room,  "  is  mistaken  when  he  attributes 
Othello  to  me." 

"  Aha,  Master  Nero  !T  cried  Shakespeare, 
triumphantly.  "  What  did  I  tell  you  ?" 

"  Then  I  erred,  that  is  all."  said  Nero. 
"  And  I  apologize.  But  really,  my  Lord," 
he  added,  addressing  Bacon,  "I  fancied 
I  detected  your  fine  Italian  hand  in 
that." 

"  No,  I  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  Othel 
lo,"  said  Bacon.  "  I  never  really  knew  who 
wrote  it." 

"Never  mind  about  that,"  whispered 
Shakespeare.  "  You've  said  enough." 

"That's  good  too,"  said  Nero,  with  a 
chuckle.  "Shakespeare  here  claims  it  as 
his  own." 

Bacon  smiled  and  nodded  approvingly 
at  the  blushing  Avonian. 

"  Will  always  was  having  his  little  joke," 
he  said.  "Eh,  Will?  How  we  fooled  'em 


24  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

on  Hamlet,  eh,  my  boy  ?  Ha-ha-ha  !  It 
was  the  greatest  joke  of  the  century." 

"  Well,  the  laugh  is  on  you,"  said  Doc 
tor  Johnson.  "  If  you  wrote  Hamlet  and 
didn't  have  the  sense  to  acknowledge  it, 
you  present  to  my  mind  a  closer  resem 
blance  to  Simple  Simon  than  to  Socrates. 
For  my  part,  I  don't  believe  you  did  write 
it,  and  I  do  believe  that  Shakespeare  did. 
I  can  tell  that  by  the  spelling  in  the  orig 
inal  edition.' 

"  Shakespeare  was  my  stenographer, 
gentlemen,"  said  Lord  Bacon.  "If  you 
want  to  know  the  whole  truth,  he  did  write 
Hamlet,  literally.  But  it  was  at  my  dic 
tation." 

"  I  deny  it,"  said  Shakespeare.  "  I  ad 
mit  you  gave  me  a  suggestion  now  and 
then  so  as  to  keep  it  dull  and  heavy  in 
spots,  so  that  it  would  seem  more  like  a 
real  tragedy  than  a  comedy  punctuated 
with  deaths,  but  beyond  that  you  had  noth 
ing  to  do  with  it." 

"  I  side  with  Shakespeare,"  put  in  Emer 
son.  "I've  seen  his  autographs,  and  no 


"LORD  BACON,  ACCOMPANIED  BY  CHARON,  APPEARED  " 


A    DISPUTED    AUTHORSHIP  28 

sane  person  would  employ  a  man  who 
wrote  such  a  villanously  bad  hand  as  an 
amanuensis.  It's  no  use,  Bacon,  we  know 
a  thing  or  two.  I'm  a  New-Englander,  I 
am." 

"  Well,"  said  Bacon,  shrugging  his  shoul 
ders  as  though  the  results  of  the  contro 
versy  were  immaterial  to  him,  "have  it 
so  if  you  please.  There  isn't  any  money  in 
Shakespeare  these  days,  so  what's  the  use 
of  quarrelling  ?  I  wrote  Hamlet,  and  Shake 
speare  knows  it.  Others  know  it.  Ah, 
here  comes  Sir  Walter  Raleigh.  We'll 
leave  it  to  him.  He  was  cognizant  of  the 
whole  affair." 

"  I  leave  it  to  nobody,"  said  Shakespeare, 
sulkily. 

"  What's  the  trouble  ?"  asked  Raleigh, 
sauntering  up  and  taking  a  chair  under 
the  cue-rack.  "  Talking  politics  ?" 

"Not  we,"  said  Bacon.  "It's  the  old 
question  about  the  authorship  of  Hamlet. 
Will,  as  usual,  claims  it  for  himself.  He'll 
be  saying  he  wrote  Genesis  next." 

"  Well,  what  if  he  does  ?"  laughed  Ra- 


26  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

leigh.  "  We  all  know  Will  and  his  droll 
ways." 

"  No  doubt,"  put  in  Nero.  "  But  the 
question  of  Samlet  always  excites  him  so 
that  we'd  like  to  have  it  settled  once  and 
for  all  as  to  who  wrote  it.  Bacon  says 
you  know." 

"I  do,"  said  Raleigh. 

"Then  settle  it  once  and  for  all,"  said 
Bacon.  "  I'm  rather  tired  of  the  discus 
sion  myself." 

"  Shall  I  tell  'em,  Shakespeare  ?"  asked 
Raleigh. 

"It's  immaterial  to  me,"  said  Shake 
speare,  airily.  "  If  you  wish — only  tell  the 
truth." 

"  Very  well,"  said  Raleigh,  lighting  a 
cigar.  "  I'm  not  ashamed  of  it.  I  wrote 
the  thing  myself." 

There  was  a  roar  of  laughter  which, 
when  it  subsided,  found  Shakespeare  rap 
idly  disappearing  through  the  door,  while 
all  the  others  in  the  room  ordered  various 
beverages  at  the  expense  of  Lord  Bacon. 


m 

WASHINGTON    GIVES   A   DINNER 

IT  was  Washington's  Birthday,  and  the 
gentleman  who  had  the  pleasure  of  be 
ing  Father  of  his  Country  decided  to 
celebrate  it  at  the  Associated  Shades' 
floating  palace  on  the  Styx,  as  the  Ely 
sium  Weekly  Gossip,  "a  Journal  of  So- 
oiety,"  called  it,  by  giving  a  dinner  to 
a  select  number  of  friends.  Among  the 
invited  guests  were  Baron  Munchau- 
sen,  Doctor  Johnson,  Confucius,  Napo 
leon  Bonaparte,  Diogenes,  and  Ptolemy. 
Boswell  was  also  present,  but  not  as  a 
guest.  He  had  a  table  off  to  one  side 
all  to  himself,  and  upon  it  there  were 
no  china  plates,  silver  spoons,  knives, 
forks,  and  dishes  of  fruit,  but  pads,  pens, 
and  ink  in  great  quantity.  It  was  evi 
dent  that  Boswell's  reportorial  duties  did 


28  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

not  end  with  his  labors  in  the  mundane 
sphere. 

The  dinner  was  set  down  to  begin  at 
seven  o'clock,  so  that  the  guests,  as  was 
proper,  sauntered  slowly  in  between  that 
hour  and  eight.  The  menu  was  partic 
ularly  choice,  the  shades  of  countless 
canvas -back  ducks,  terrapin,  and  sheep 
having  been  called  into  requisition,  and 
cooked  by  no  less  a  person  than  Brillat- 
Savarin,  in  the  hottest  oven  he  could  find 
in  the  famous  cooking  establishment  su 
perintended  by  the  government.  Wash 
ington  was  on  hand  early,  sampling  the  ol 
ives  and  the  celery  and  the  wines,  and  giv 
ing  to  Charon  final  instructions  as  to  the 
manner  in  which  he  wished  things  served. 

The  first  guest  to  arrive  was  Confucius, 
and  after  him  came  Diogenes,  the  latter 
in  great  excitement  over  having  discovered 
a  comparatively  honest  man,  whose  name, 
however,  he  had  not  been  able  to  ascertain, 
though  he  was  under  the  impression  that 
it  was  something  like  Burpin,  or  Turpin, 
he  said. 


WASHINGTON    GIVES    A    DINNER  29 

At  eight  the  brilliant  company  was  ar 
ranged  comfortably  about  the  board.  An 
orchestra  of  five,  under  the  leadership  of 
Mozart,  discoursed  sweet  music  behind  a 
screen,  and  the  feast  of  reason  and  flow 
of  soul  began. 

"This  is  a  great  day,"  said  Doctor 
Johnson,  assisting  himself  copiously  to  the 
olives. 

"Yes,"  said  Columbus,  who  was  also  a 
guest — "  yes,  it  is  a  great  day,  but  it  isn't  a 
marker  to  a  little  day  in  October  I  wot  of." 

"  Still  sore  on  that  point  ?"  queried  Con 
fucius,  trying  the  edge  of  his  knife  on  the 
shade  of  a  salted  almond. 

"Oh  no,"  said  Columbus,  calmly.  "I 
don't  feel  jealous  of  Washington.  He  is 
the  Father  of  his  Country  and  I  am  not. 
I  only  discovered  the  orphan.  I  knew  the 
country  before  it  had  a  father  or  a  mother. 
There  wasn't  anybody  who  was  willing 
to  be  even  a  sister  to  it  when  I  knew  it. 
But  G.  W.  here  took  it  in  hand,  groomed 
it  down,  spanked  it  when  it  needed  it,  and 
started  it  off  on  the  career  which  has 


80  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

made  it  worth  while  for  me  to  let  my 
name  be  known  in  connection  with  it. 
Why  should  I  be  jealous  of  him  ?" 

"  I  am  sure  I  don't  know  why  anybody 
anywhere  should  be  jealous  of  anybody 
else  anyhow,"  said  Diogenes.  "  I  never 
was  and  I  never  expect  to  be.  Jealousy 
is  a  quality  that  is  utterly  foreign  to  the 
nature  of  an  honest  man.  Take  my  own 
case,  for  instance.  When  I  was  what  they 
call  alive,  how  did  I  live  ?" 

"  I  don't  know,"  said  Doctor  Johnson,, 
turning  his  head  as  he  spoke  so  that  Bos- 
well  could  not  fail  to  hear.  "I  wasn't 
there." 

Boswell  nodded  approvingly,  chuckled 
slightly,  and  put  the  Doctor's  remark 
down  for  publication  in  The  Gossip. 

"You're  doubtless  right,  there,"  retort 
ed  Diogenes.  "  What  you  don't  know 
would  fill  a  circulating  library.  Well — I 
lived  in  a  tub.  Now,  if  I  believed  in 
envy,  I  suppose  you  think  I'd  be  envious 
of  people  who  live  in  brownstone  fronts, 
with  back  yards  and  mortgages,  eh  ?" 


;  AN    ORCHESTRA    OF   FITE,    UNDER    THE    LEADERSHIP    OF 
MOZART,   DISCOURSED    SWEET    MUSIC  " 


WASHINGTON    GIVES    A    DINNER  81 

"  I'd  rather  live  under  a  mortgage  than 
in  a  tub,"  said  Bonaparte,  contemptu 
ously. 

"I  know  you  would,"  said  Diogenes. 
"Mortgages  never  bothered  you — but  I 
wouldn't.  In  the  first  place,  my  tub  was 
warm.  I  never  saw  a  house  with  a  brown- 
stone  front  that  was,  except  in  summer, 
and  then  the  owner  cursed  it  because  it 
was  so.  My  tub  had  no  plumbing  in  it  to 
get  out  of  order.  It  hadn't  any  flights  of 
stairs  in  it  that  had  to  be  climbed  after 
dinner,  or  late  at  night  when  I  came  home 
from  the  club.  It  had  no  front  door  with 
a  wandering  key-hole  calculated  to  elude 
the  key  ninety-nine  times  out  of  every 
hundred  efforts  to  bring  the  two  together 
and  reconcile  their  differences,  in  order 
that  their  owner  may  get  into  his  own 
house  late  at  night.  It  wasn't  chained 
down  to  any  particular  neighborhood,  as 
are  most  brownstone  fronts.  If  the  neigh 
borhood  ran  down,  I  could  move  my  tub 
off  into  a  better  neighborhood,  and  it 
never  lost  value  through  the  deterioration 


82  A   HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

of  its  location.  I  never  had  to  pay  taxes 
on  it,  and  no  burglar  was  ever  so  hard  up 
that  he  thought  of  breaking  into  my 
habitation  to  rob  me.  So  why  should  I 
be  jealous  of  the  brownstone-house  dwell 
ers  ?  I  am  a  philosopher,  gentlemen.  I 
tell  you,  philosophy  is  the  thief  of  jealousy, 
and  I  had  the  good -luck  to  find  it  out 
early  in  life." 

"  There  is  much  in  what  you  say,"  said 
Confucius.  "  But  there's  another  side  to 
the  matter.  If  a  man  is  an  aristocrat  by 
nature,  as  I  was,  his  neighborhood  never 
could  run  down.  Wherever  he  lived 
would  be  the  swell  section,  so  that  really 
your  last  argument  isn't  worth  a  stewed 
icicle." 

"  Stewed  icicles  are  pretty  good,  though," 
eaid  Baron  Munchausen,  with  an  ecstatic 
smack  of  his  lips.  "  I've  eaten  them  many 
a  time  in  the  polar  regions." 

"I  have  no  doubt  of  it,"  put  in  Doctor 
Johnson.  "  You've  eaten  fried  pyramids 
in  Africa,  too,  haven't  you  ?" 

"  Only  once,"  said  the   Baron,  calinlv. 


WASHINGTON    GIVES    A    DINNER  33 

"  And  I  can't  say  I  enjoyed  them.  They 
are  rather  heavy  for  the  digestion." 

"That's  so,"  said  Ptolemy.  "I've  had 
experience  with  pyramids  myself." 

"  You  never  ate  one,  did  you,  Ptolemy  ?" 
queried  Bonaparte. 

"  Not  raw,"  said  Ptolemy,  with  a  chuckle. 
"  Though  I're  been  tempted  many  a  time 
to  call  for  a  second  joint  of  the  Sphinx." 

There  was  a  laugh  at  this,  in  which  all 
but  Baron  Munchausen  joined. 

"  I  think  it  is  too  bad,"  said  the  Baron, 
as  the  laughter  subsided — "  I  think  it  is 
yery  much  too  bad  that  you  shades  have 
brought  mundane  prejudice  with  you  into 
this  sphere.  Just  because  some  people 
with  finite  minds  profess  to  disbelieve  my 
stories,  you  think  it  well  to  be  sceptical 
yourselves.  I  don't  care,  however,  wheth 
er  you  believe  me  or  not.  The  fact  re 
mains  that  I  have  eaten  one  fried  pyra 
mid  and  countless  stewed  icicles,  and  the 
stewed  icicles  were  finer  than  any  dia 
mond-back  rat  Confucius  ever  had  served 
at  a  state  banquet." 

3 


34  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

"Where's  Shakespeare  to-night?"  asked 
Confucius,  seeing  that  the  Baron  was  be 
ginning  to  lose  his  temper,  and  wishing  to 
avoid  trouble  by  changing  the  subject. 
"  Wasn't  he  invited,  General  ?" 

"Yes,"  said  Washington,  "he  was  in 
vited,  but  he  couldn't  come.  He  had  to 
go  over  the  river  to  consult  with  an  auto 
graph  syndicate  they've  formed  in  New 
York.  You  know,  his  autographs  sell  for 
about  one  thousand  dollars  apiece,  and 
they're  trying  to  get  up  a  scheme  whereby 
he  shall  contribute  an  autograph  a  week 
to  the  syndicate,  to  be  sold  to  the  public. 
It  seems  like  a  rich  scheme,  but  there's 
one  thing  in  the  way.  Posthumous  auto 
graphs  haven't  very  much  of  a  market, 
because  the  mortals  can't  be  made  to 
believe  that  they  are  genuine  ;  but  the 
syndicate  has  got  a  man  at  work  trying 
to  get  over  that.  These  Yankees  are  a 
mighty  inventive  lot,  and  they  think  per 
haps  the  scheme  can  be  worked.  The 
Yankee  is  an  inventive  genius." 

"It  wa&  a  Yankee  invented  that  tale 


WASHINGTON    GIVES    A    DINNER  35 

about  your  not  being  able  to  prevaricate, 
wasn't  it,  George  ?"  asked  Diogenes. 

Washington  smiled  acquiescence,  and 
Doctor  Johnson  returned  to  Shakespeare. 

"I'd  rather  have  a  morning-glory  vine 
than  one  of  Shakespeare's  autographs," 
said  he.  "They  are  far  prettier,  and 
quite  as  legible." 

"Mortals  wouldn't,"  said  Bonaparte. 

"  What  fools  they  be  !"  chuckled  John- 
eon. 

At  this  point  the  canvas-back  ducks 
were  served,  one  whole  shade  of  a  bird  for 
each  guest. 

"  Fall  to,  gentlemen,"  said  Washington, 
gazing  hungrily  at  his  bird.  "  When 
canvas-back  ducks  are  on  the  table  con 
versation  is  not  required  of  any  one." 

"  It  is  fortunate  for  us  that  we  have  so 
considerate  a  host,"  said  Confucius,  un 
fastening  his  robe  and  preparing  to  do 
justice  to  the  fare  set  before  him.  "I 
have  dined  often,  but  never  before  with 
one  who  was  willing  to  let  me  eat  a  bird 
like  this  in  silence.  Washington,  here's 


36  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

to  you.  May  your  life  be  chequered  with 
birthdays,  and  may  ours  be  equally  well 
supplied  with  feasts  like  this  at  your  ex 
pense  !" 

The  toast  was  drained,  and  the  diners 
fell  to  as  requested. 

"  They're  great,  aren't  they  ?"  whis 
pered  Bonaparte  to  Munchausen. 

"Well,  rather,"  returned  the  Baron. 
"I  don't  see  why  the  mortals  don't  erect 
a  statue  to  the  canvas-back." 

"  Did  anybody  at  this  board  ever  have 
as  much  canvas-back  duck  as  he  could 
eat?"  asked  Doctor  Johnson. 

"  Yes,"  said  the  Baron.    "I  did.    Once." 

"  Oh,  you  !"  sneered  Ptolemy.  "  You've 
had  everything." 

"Except  the  mumps,"  retorted  Mun 
chausen.  "  But,  honestly,  I  did  once  have 
as  much  canvas-back  duck  as  I  could  eat." 

"  It  must  have  cost  you  a  million,"  said 
Bonaparte.  "  But  even  then  they'd  be 
cheap,  especially  to  a  man  like  yourself  who 
could  perform  miracles.  If  I  could  have 
performed  miracles  with  the  ease  which 


WASHINGTON    GIVES    A    DINNER  37 

was  so  characteristic  of   all  your  efforts, 
I'd  never  have  died  at  St.  Helena." 

"  What's  the  odds  where  you  died  ?" 
said  Doctor  Johnson.  "If  it  hadn't  been 
at  St.  Helena  it  would  have  been  some 
where  else,  and  you'd  have  found  death  as 
stuffy  in  one  place  as  in  another." 

"Don't  let's  talk  of  death,"  said  Wash 
ington.  "I  am  sure  the  Baron's  tale  of 
how  he  came  to  have  enough  canvas-back 
is  more  diverting." 

"I've  no  doubt  it  is  more  perverting,'1 
said  Johnson. 

"  It  happened  this  way,"  said  Munchau 
sen.  "I  was  out  for  sport,  and  I  got  it, 
I  was  alone,  my  servant  having  fallen  ill, 
which  was  unfortunate,  since  I  had  always 
left  the  filling  of  my  cartridge-box  to  him 
and  underestimated  its  capacity.  I  started 
at  six  in  the  morning,  and,  not  having 
hunted  for  several  months,  was  not  in 
very  good  form,  so,  no  game  appearing 
for  a  time,  I  took  a  few  practice  shots, 
trying  to  snip  off  the  slender  tops  of  the 
pine-trees  that  I  encountered  with  my 


88  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

bullets,  succeeding  tolerably  well  for  one 
who  was  a  little  rusty,  bringing  down 
ninety-nine  out  of  the  first  one  hundred 
and  one,  and  missing  the  remaining  two 
by  such  a  close  margin  that  they  swayed 
to  and  fro  as  though  fanned  by  a  slight 
breeze.  As  I  fired  my  one  hundred  and 
first  shot  what  should  I  see  before  me  but 
a  flock  of  these  delicate  birds  floating  upon 
the  placid  waters  of  the  bay  !" 

"  Was  this  the  Bay  of  Biscay,  Baron  ?" 
queried  Columbus,  with  a  covert  smile  at 
Ptolemy. 

"  I  counted  them,"  said  the  Baron,  ignor 
ing  the  question,  "  and  there  were  just 
sixty-eight.  'Here's  a  chance  for  the 
record,  Baron,'  said  I  to  myself,  and  then 
I  made  ready  to  shoot  them.  Imagine 
my  dismay,  gentlemen,  when  I  discovered 
that  while  I  had  plenty  of  powder  left  I 
had  used  up  all  my  bullets.  Now,  as  you 
may  imagine,  to  a  man  with  no  bullets  at 
hand,  the  sight  of  sixty-eight  fat  canvas- 
backs  is  hardly  encouraging,  but  I  was 
resolved  to  have  every  one  of  those  birds; 


WASHINGTON    GIVES    A    DINNER  39 

the  question  was,  how  shall  I  do  it  ?  I 
never  can  think  on  water,  so  I  paddled  qui 
etly  ashore  and  began  to  reflect.  As  I  lay 
there  deep  in  thought,  I  saw  lying  upon  the 
beach  before  me  a  superb  oyster,  and  as  re 
flection  makes  me  hungry  I  seized  upon  the 
bivalve  and  swallowed  him.  As  he  went 
down  something  stuck  in  my  throat,  and, 
extricating  it,  what  should  it  prove  to  be 
but  a  pearl  of  surpassing  beauty.  My 
first  thought  was  to  be  content  with  my 
day's  find.  A  pearl  worth  thousands 
surely  was  enough  to  satisfy  the  most 
ardent  lover  of  sport ;  but  on  looking  up 
I  saw  those  ducks  still  paddling  content 
edly  about,  and  I  could  not  bring  myself 
to  give  them  up.  Suddenly  the  idea 
came,  the  pearl  is  as  large  as  a  bullet,  and 
fully  as  round.  Why  not  use  it  ?  Then, 
as  thoughts  come  to  me  in  shoals,  I  next 
reflected,  'Ah — but  this  is  only  one  bullet 
as  against  sixty-eight  birds:'  immediately 
a  third  thought  came,  'why  not  shoot 
them  all  with  a  single  bullet?  It  is  pos 
sible,  though  not  probable.'  I  snatched 


40  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

out  a  pad  of  paper  and  a  pencil,  made  a 
rapid  calculation  based  on  the  doctrine  of 
chances,  and  proved  to  my  own  satisfac 
tion  that  at  some  time  or  another  within 
the  following  two  weeks  those  birds  would 
doubtless  be  sitting  in  a  straight  line  and 
paddling  about,  Indian  file,  for  an  instant. 
I  resolved  to  await  that  instant.  I  loaded 
my  gun  with  the  pearl  and  a  sufficient 
quantity  of  powder  to  send  the  charge 
through  every  one  of  the  ducks  if,  per 
chance,  the  first  duck  were  properly  hit. 
To  pass  over  wearisome  details,  let  me  say 
that  it  happened  just  as  I  expected.  I 
had  one  week  and  six  days  to  wait,  but 
finally  the  critical  moment  came.  It  was  at 
midnight,  but  fortunately  the  moon  was  at 
the  full,  and  I  could  see  as  plainly  as  though 
it  had  been  day.  The  moment  the  ducks 
were  in  line  I  aimed  and  fired.  They  every 
one  squawked,  turned  over,  and  died.  My 
pearl  had  pierced  the  whole  sixty-eight." 

Boswell  blushed. 

"Ahem!"  said  Doctor  Johnson.  "It 
was  a  pity  to  lose  the  pearl." 


WASHINGTON    GIVES    A    DINNER  41 

"That,"  said  Munchausen,  "was  the 
most  interesting  part  of  the  story.  I  had 
made  a  second  calculation  in  order  to  save 
the  pearl.  I  deduced  the  amount  of  pow 
der  necessary  to  send  the  gem  through 
sixty-seven  and  a  half  birds,  and  my  de 
duction  was  strictly  accurate.  It  fulfilled 
its  mission  of  death  on  sixty-seven  and 
was  found  buried  in  the  heart  of  the  sixty- 
eighth,  a  trifle  discolored,  but  still  a  pearl, 
and  worth  a  king's  ransom." 

Napoleon  gave  a  derisive  laugh, 
and  the  other  guests  sat  with  incre 
dulity  depicted  upon  every  line  of  their 
faces. 

"Do  you  believe  that  story  yourself, 
Baron?"  asked  Confucius. 

"Why  not?"  asked  the  Baron.  "  Is  there 
anything  improbable  in  it?  Why  should 
you  disbelieve  it?  Look  at  our  friend 
Washington  here.  Is  there  any  one  here 
who  knows  more  about  truth  than  he  does? 
He  doesn't  disbelieve  it.  He's  the  only  man 
at  this  table  who  treats  me  like  a  man  of 
honor." 


42  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

"He's  host  and  has  to,"  said  Johnson, 
shrugging  his  shoulders. 

"Well,  Washington,  let  me  put  the 
direct  question  to  you,"  said  the  Baron. 
"Say  you  aren't  host  and  are  under  no 
obligation  to  be  courteous.  Do  you  be 
lieve  I  haven't  been  telling  the  truth  ?" 

"  My  dear  Munchausen,"  said  the  Gen 
eral,  "don't  ask  me.  I'm  not  an  au 
thority.  I  can't  tell  a  lie — not  even  when 
I  hear  one.  If  you  say  your  story  is  true, 
I  must  believe  it,  of  course  ;  but — ah — 
really,  if  I  were  you,  I  wouldn't  tell  it 
again  unless  I  could  produce  the  pearl  and 
the  wish-bone  of  one  of  the  ducks  at 
least." 

Whereupon,  as  the  discussion  was  be 
ginning  to  grow  acrimonious,  Washington 
hailed  Charon,  and,  ordering  a  boat,  in 
vited  his  guests  to  accompany  him  over 
into  the  world  of  realities,  where  they 
passed  the  balance  of  the  evening  haunt 
ing  a  vaudeville  performance  at  one  of  the 
London  music-halls. 


IV 

HAMLET   MAKES    A   SUGGESTION 

IT  was  a  beautiful  night  on  the  Styx, 
and  the  silvery  surface  of  that  picturesque 
stream  was  dotted  with  gondolas,  canoes, 
and  other  craft  to  an  extent  that  made 
Charon  feel  like  a  highly  prosperous  sav 
ings-bank.  Within  the  house-boat  were 
gathered  a  merry  party,  some  of  whom 
were  on  mere  pleasure  bent,  others  of 
whom  had  come  to  listen  to  a  debate,  for 
which  the  entertainment  committee  had 
provided,  between  the  venerable  patriarch 
Noah  and  the  late  eminent  showman  P.  T. 
Barnum.  The  question  to  be  debated  was 
upon  the  resolution  passed  by  the  com 
mittee,  that  "  The  Animals  of  the  Antedi 
luvian  Period  were  Far  More  Attractive 
for  Show  Purposes  than  those  of  Modern 
Make,"  and,  singular  to  relate,  the  affirma- 


44  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

tive  was  placed  in  the  hands  of  Mr.  Bar- 
num,  while  to  Noah  had  fallen  the  task  of 
upholding  the  virtues  of  the  modern  freak. 
It  is  with  the  party  on  mere  pleasure  bent 
that  we  have  to  do  upon  this  occasion.  The 
proceedings  of  the  debating-party  are  as 
yet  in  the  hands  of  the  official  stenographer, 
but  will  be  made  public  as  soon  as  they 
are  ready. 

The  pleasure-seeking  group  were  gath 
ered  in  the  smoking-room  of  the  club, 
which  was,  indeed,  a  smoking-room  of  a 
novel  sort,  the  invention  of  an  unknown 
shade,  who  had  sold  all  the  rights  to  the 
club  through  a  third  party,  anonymously, 
preferring,  it  seemed,  to  remain  in  the 
Elysian  world,  as  he  had  been  in  the  mun 
dane  sphere,  a  mute  inglorious  Edison.  It 
was  a  simple  enough  scheme,  and,  for  a 
wonder,  no  one  in  the  world  of  substan 
tialities  has  thought  to  take  it  up.  The 
smoke  was  stored  in  reservoirs,  just  as  if 
it  were  so  much  gas  or  water,  and  was  sup 
plied  on  the  hot-air  furnace  principle  from 
a  huge  furnace  in  the  hold  of  the  house- 


HAMLET    MAKES    A    SUGGESTION  45 

boat,  into  which  tobacco  was  shovelled  by 
the  hired  man  of  the  club  night  and  day. 
The  smoke  from  the  furnace,  carried 
through  flues  to  the  smoking-room,  was 
there  received  and  stored  in  the  reservoirs, 
with  each  of  which  was  connected  one  doz 
en  rubber  tubes,  having  at  their  ends  am 
ber  mouth-pieces.  Upon  each  of  these 
mouth-pieces  was  arranged  a  small  meter 
registering  the  amount  of  smoke  consumed 
through  it,  and  for  this  the  consumer  paid 
so  much  a  foot.  The  value  of  the  plan 
was  threefold.  It  did  away  entirely  with 
ashes,  it  saved  to  the  consumers  the  value 
of  the  unconsumed  tobacco  that  is  repre 
sented  by  the  unsmoked  cigar  ends,  and  it 
averted  the  possibility  of  cigarettes. 

Enjoying  the  benefits  of  this  arrange 
ment  upon  the  evening  in  question  were 
Shakespeare,  Cicero,  Henry  VIII.,  Doctor 
Johnson,  and  others.  Of  course  Boswell 
was  present  too,  for  a  moment,  with  his 
note-book,  and  this  fact  evoked  some  criti 
cism  from  several  of  the  smokers. 

"  You  ought  to  be  up-stairs  in  the  leek 


46  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

ure-room,  Bos  well,"  said  Shakespeare,  as 
the  great  biographer  took  his  seat  behind 
his  friend  the  Doctor.  "  Doesn't  the  Gos 
sip  want  a  report  of  the  debate  ?" 

"It  does,"  said  Boswell;  "  but  the  Gos- 
aip endeavors  always  to  get  the  most  inter 
esting  items  of  the  day,  and  Doctor  John- 
son  has  informed  me  that  he  expects  to  be 
unusually  witty  this  evening,  so  I  have 
come  here." 

"  Excuse  me  for  saying  it,  Boswell," 
said  the  Doctor,  getting  red  in  the  face 
over  this  unexpected  confession,  "  but, 
really,  you  talk  too  much." 

"That's  good,"  said  Cicero.  "Stick 
that  down,  Boz,  and  print  it.  It's  the  best 
thing  Johnson  has  said  this  week." 

Boswell  smiled  weakly,  and  said  :  "  But, 
Doctor,  you  did  say  that,  you  know.  I 
can  prove  it,  too,  for  you  told  me  some  of 
the  things  you  were  going  to  say.  Don't 
you  remember,  you  were  going  to  lead 
Shakespeare  up  to  making  the  remark  that 
he  thought  the  English  language  was  the 
greatest  language  in  creation,  whereupon 


HAMLET    MAKES    A    SUGGESTION  47 

you  were  going  to  ask  him  why  he  didn't 
learn  it?" 

"  Get  out  of  here,  you  idiot!"  roared  the 
Doctor.  "You're  enough  to  give  a  man 
apoplexy." 

"You're  not  going  back  on  the  ladder 
by  which  you  have  climbed,  are  you, 
Samuel  ?"  queried  Boswell,  earnestly. 

"  The  wha-a-t  ?"  cried  the  Doctor,  angri 
ly.  "  The  ladder — on  which  I  climbed  ? 
You  ?  Great  heavens  !  That  it  should 
come  to  this  !  .  .  .  Leave  the  room — in 
stantly  !  Ladder !  By  all  that  is  beauti 
ful — the  ladder  upon  which  I,  Samuel 
Johnson,  the  tallest  person  in  letters,  have 
climbed !  Go  !  Do  you  hear  ?" 

Boswell  rose  meekly,  and,  with  tears 
coursing  down  his  cheeks,  left  the  room. 

"  That's  one  on  you,  Doctor,"  said  Cicero, 
wrapping  his  toga  about  him.  "I  think 
you  ought  to  order  up  three  baskets  of 
champagne  on  that." 

"  I'll  order  up  three  baskets  full  of  Bos- 
well's  remains  if  he  ever  dares  speak  like 
that  again!"  retorted  the  Doctor,  shaking 


48  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

with  anger.  "  He — my  ladder— why,  it's 
ridiculous." 

"  Yes,"  said  Shakespeare,  dryly.  "  That's 
why  we  laugh." 

"  You  were  a  little  hard  on  him,  Doc 
tor,"  said  Henry  VIII.  "  He  was  a  valu 
able  man  to  you.  He  had  a  great  eye  for 
your  greatness." 

"Yes.  If  there's  any  feature  of  Bos- 
well  that's  greater  than  his  nose  and  ears, 
it's  his  great  I,"  said  the  Doctor. 

"  You'd  rather  have  him  change  his  I  to 
a  U,  I  presume,"  said  Napoleon,  quietly. 

The  Doctor  waved  his  hand  impatiently. 

"Let's  drop  him,"  he  said.  "  Dropping 
one's  biographer  isn't  without  precedent. 
As  soon  as  any  man  ever  got  to  know  Na 
poleon  well  enough  to  write  him  up  he 
sent  him  to  the  front,  where  he  could  get  a 
little  lead  in  his  system." 

"  I  wish  I  had  had  a  Boswell  all  the 
same,"  said  Shakespeare.  "  Then  the 
world  would  have  known  the  truth  about 
me." 

"  It  wouldn't  if  he'd  relied  on  your  word 


DOCTOR   JOHNSON   IN    A   RAGE 


HAMLET    MAKES    A    SUGGESTION  49 

for  it,"  retorted  the  Doctor.  "  Hullo  I 
here's  Hamlet." 

As  the  Doctor  spoke,  in  very  truth  the 
melancholy  Dane  appeared  in  the  door 
way,  more  melancholy  of  aspect  than  ever. 

"  What's  the  matter  with  you  ?"  ask 
ed  Cicero,  addressing  the  new-comer. 
"  Haven't  you  got  that  poison  out  of  your 
system  yet  ?" 

"Not  entirely,"  said  Hamlet,  with  a 
sigh  ;  "  but  it  isn't  that  that's  bothering 
me.  It's  Fate." 

"We'll  get  out  an  injunction  against 
Fate  if  you  like,"  said  Blackstone.  "  Is  it 
persecution,  or  have  you  deserved  it  ?" 

"  I  think  it's  persecution,"  said  Hamlet. 
"  I  never  wronged  Fate  in  my  life,  and  why 
she  should  pursue  me  like  a  demon  through 
all  eternity  is  a  thing  I  can't  understand.'* 

"Maybe  Ophelia  is  back  of  it,"  suggest 
ed  Doctor  Johnson.  "  These  women  have 
a  great  deal  of  sj  mpathy  for  each  other, 
and,  candidly,  I  think  you  behaved  pretty 
rudely  to  Ophelia.  It's  a  poor  way  to  show 
your  love  for  a  young  woman,  running  a 


60  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

sword  through  her  father  every  night  for 
pay,  and  driving  the  girl  to  suicide  with 
equal  frequency,  just  to  show  theatre-goers 
what  a  smart  little  Dane  you  can  be  if  you 
try." 

"'Tisn't  me  does  all  that,"  returned 
Hamlet.  "  I  only  did  it  once,  and  even 
then  it  wasn't  as  bad  as  Shakespeare  made 
it  out  to  be." 

"I  put  it  down  just  as  it  was,"  said 
Shakespeare,  hotly,  "  and  you  can't  dis 
pute  it." 

"  Yes,  he  can,"  said  Yorick.  "  You  made 
him  tell  Horatio  he  knew  me  well,  and 
he  never  met  me  in  his  life." 

"I  never  told  Horatio  anything  of  the 
sort,"  said  Hamlet.  "  I  never  entered  the 
graveyard  even,  and  I  can  prove  an 
alibi." 

"And,  what's  more,  he  couldn't  have 
made  the  remark  the  way  Shakespeare  has 
it,  anyhow,"  said  Yorick,  "and  for  a  very 
good  reason.  I  wasn't  buried  in  that  grave 
yard,  and  Hamlet  and  I  can  prove  an  alibi 
for  the  skull,  too." 


HAMLET    MAKES    A    SUGGESTION  51 

"It  was  a  good  play,  just  the  same,"  said 
Cicero. 

"Very,"  put  in  Doctor  Johnson.  "It 
cured  me  of  insomnia." 

"  Well,  if  you  don't  talk  in  your  sleep,  the 
play  did  a  Christian  service  to  the  world," 
retorted  Shakespeare.  "  But,  really,  Ham 
let,  I  thought  I  did  the  square  thing  by 
you  in  that  play.  I  meant  to,  anyhow; 
and  if  it  has  made  you  unhappy,  I'm  hon 
estly  sorry." 

"  Spoken  like  a  man,"  said  Yorick. 

"  I  don't  mind  the  play  so  much,"  said 
Hamlet,  "  but  the  way  I'm  represented  by 
these  fellows  who  play  it  is  the  thing  that 
rubs  me  the  wrong  way.  Why,  I  even 
hear  that  there's  a  troupe  out  in  the  western 
part  of  the  United  States  that  puts  the 
thing  on  with  three  Hamlets,  two  ghosts, 
and  a  pair  of  blood-hounds.  It's  called  the 
Uncle-Tom-Hamlet  Combination,  and  in 
stead  of  my  falling  in  love  with  one  crazy 
Ophelia,  I  am  made  to  woo  three  dusky 
maniacs  named  Topsy  on  a  canvas  ice-floe, 
while  the  blood-hounds  bark  behind  tba 


52  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

scenes.  What  sort  of  treatment  is  that 
for  a  man  of  royal  lineage  ?" 

"  It's  pretty  rough,"  said  Napoleon.  "  As 
the  poet  ought  to  have  said,  '  Oh,  Hamlet, 
Hamlet,  what  crimes  are  committed  in  thy 
name!'" 

"  I  feel  as  badly  about  the  play  as  Hamlet 
does,"  said  Shakespeare,  after  a  moment  of 
silent  thought.  "  I  don't  bother  much  about 
this  wild  Western  business,  though,  be 
cause  I  think  the  introduction  of  the  blood 
hounds  and  the  Topsies  makes  us  both 
more  popular  in  that  region  than  we  should 
be  otherwise.  What  I  object  to  is  the  way 
we  are  treated  by  these  so-called  first-class 
intellectual  actors  in  London  and  other 
great  cities.  I've  seen  Hamlet  done  before 
a  highly  cultivated  audience,  and,  by  Jove, 
it  made  me  blush." 

"Me  too,"  sighed  Hamlet.  "  I  have  seen 
a  man  who  had  a  walk  on  him  that  sug 
gested  spring-halt  and  locomotor  ataxia 
combined  impersonating  my  graceful  self 
in  a  manner  that  drove  me  almost  crazy. 
I've  heard  my  'To  be  or  not  to  be  soliloquy 


THE  MELANCHOLY   DANE   APPEARED ' 


HAMLET    MAKES    A    SUGGESTION  53 

uttered  by  a  famous  tragedian  in  tones  that 
would  make  a  graveyard  yawn  at  mid-day, 
and  if  there  was  any  way  in  which  I  could 
get  even  with  that  man  I'd  do  it." 

"  It  seems  to  me,"  said  Blackstone,  as 
suming  for  the  moment  a  highly  judicial 
manner — "  it  seems  to  me  that  Shakespeare, 
having  got  you  into  this  trouble,  ought  to 
get  you  out  of  it." 

"  But  how  ?"  said  Shakespeare,  earnestly. 
"That's  the  point.  Heaven  knows  I'm 
willing  enough." 

Hamlet's  face  suddenly  brightened  as 
though  illuminated  with  an  idea.  Then  he 
began  to  dance  about  the  room  with  an  ex 
pression  of  glee  that  annoyed  Doctor  John 
son  exceedingly. 

"  I  wish  Darwin  could  see  you  now,"  the 
Doctor  growled.  "A  kodak  picture  of 
you  would  prove  his  arguments  conclu 
sively." 

"  Rail  on,  O  philosopher  !"  retorted  Ham 
let.  "Rail  on!  I  mind  your  railings  not, 
for  I  the  germ  of  an  idea  have  got." 

"  Well,  go  quarantine  yourself,"  said  the 


64  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STTZ 

Doctor.  "  I'd  hate  to  have  one  of  your  idea 
microbes  get  hold  of  me." 

"What's  the  scheme?"  asked  Shake 
speare. 

"You  can  write  a  play  for  mef"  cried 
Hamlet.  "  Make  it  a  farce-tragedy.  Take 
the  modern  player  for  your  hero,  and  let 
me  play  him.  I'll  bait  him  through  four 
acts.  I'll  imitate  his  walk.  I'll  cultivate 
his  voice.  We'll  have  the  first  act  a  tank 
act,  and  drop  the  hero  into  the  tank.  The 
second  act  can  be  in  a  saw-mill,  and  we  can 
cut  his  hair  off  on  a  buzz-saw.  The  third 
act  can  introduce  a  spile-driver  with  which 
to  drive  his  hat  over  his  eyes  and  knock 
his  brains  down  into  his  lungs.  The  fourth 
act  can  be  at  Niagara  Falls,  and  we'll  send 
him  over  the  falls ;  and  for  a  grand  climax 
we  can  have  him  guillotined  just  after  he 
has  swallowed  a  quart  of  prussic  acid  and 
a  spoonful  of  powdered  glass.  Do  that  for 
me,  William,  and  you  are  forgiven.  I'll 
play  it  for  six  hundred  nights  in  London, 
for  two  years  in  New  York,  and  round  up 
with  a  one-night  stand  in  Boston." 


HAMLET  MAKES  A  SUGGESTION      55 

"It  sounds  like  a  good  scheme,"  said 
Shakespeare,  meditatively.  "What  shall 
we  call  it  ?" 

"Call  it  Irving"  said  Eugene  Aram, 
who  had  entered.  "I  too  have  suf 
fered." 

"And  let  me  be  Hamlet's  understudy," 
said  Charles  the  First,  earnestly. 

"  Done  !"  said  Shakespeare,  calling  for  a 
pad  and  pencil. 

And  as  the  sun  rose  upon  the  Styx  the 
next  morning  the  Bard  of  Avon  was  to  be 
seen  writing  a  comic  chorus  to  be  sung 
over  the  moribund  tragedian  by  the  shades 
of  Charles,  Aram,  and  other  eminent  de 
ceased  heroes  of  the  stage,  with  which  his 
new  play  of  Irving  was  to  be  brought  to 
an  appropriate  close. 

This  play  has  not  as  yet  found  its  way 
upon  the  boards,  but  any  enterprising 
manager  who  desires  to  consider  it  may 
address 

Hamlet, 

The  House-Boat, 

Hades-on-the-Styx. 


56  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

He  is  sure  to  get  a  reply  by  return  mail, 
unless  Mephistopheles  interferes,  which  is 
not  unlikely,  since  Mephistopheles  is  said 
to  have  been  much  pleased  with  the  manner 
in  which  the  eminent  tragedian  has  put  him 
before  the  British  and  American  public. 


THE    HOUSE    COMMITTEE   DISCUSS   THE 
POETS 

"THERE'S  one  thing  this  house -boat 
needs,"  wrote  Homer  in  the  complaint- 
book  that  adorned  the  centre-table  in  the 
reading-room,  "  and  that  is  a  Poets'  Corner. 
There  are  smoking-rooms  for  those  who 
smoke,  billiard -rooms  for  those  who  play 
billiards,  and  a  card -room  for  those  who 
play  cards.  I  do  not  smoke,  I  can't  play 
billiards,  and  I  do  not  know  a  trey  of  dia 
monds  from  a  silver  salver.  All  I  can  do 
is  write  poetry.  Why  discriminate  against 
me?  By  all  means  let  us  have  a  Poets'  Cor 
ner,  where  a 'man  can  be  inspired  in  peace." 

For  four  days  this  entry  lay  in  the  book 
apparently  unnoticed.  On  the  fifth  day 
the  following  lines,  signed  by  Samson,  ap 
peared  : 


68  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

"I  approve  of  Homer's  suggestion.  There 
should  be  a  Poets'  Corner  here.  Then  the 
rest  of  us  could  have  some  comfort.  While 
playing  vingt-et-un  with  Diogenes  in  the 
card-room  on  Friday  evening  a  poetic  mem 
ber  of  this  club  was  taken  with  a  most  vio 
lent  fancy,  and  it  required  the  combined 
efforts  of  Diogenes  and  myself,  assisted  by 
the  janitor,  to  remove  the  frenzied  and  ob 
jectionable  member  from  the  room.  The 
habit  some  of  our  poets  have  acquired  of 
giving  way  to  their  inspirations  all  over 
the  club-house  should  be  stopped,  and  I 
know  of  no  better  way  to  accomplish  this 
desirable  end  than  by  the  adoption  of  Ho 
mer's  suggestion.  Therefore  I  second  the 
motion." 

Of  course  the  suggestion  of  two  mem 
bers  so  prominent  as  Homer  and  Samson 
could  not  well  be  ignored  by  the  house 
committee,  and  it  reluctantly  took  the 
subject  in  hand  at  an  early  meeting. 

"I  find  here,"  said  Demosthenes  to  the 
chairman,  as  the  committee  gathered,  "a 
suggestion  from  Homer  and  Samson  that 


EJECTING    A   FRENZIED   POET   FROM   THE   CARD-ROOM 


HOUSE   COMMITTEE   DISCUSS   THE   POETS     59 

this  house-boat  be  provided  with  a  Poets' 
Corner.  I  do  not  know  that  I  approve  of 
the  suggestion  myself,  but  in  order  to  bring 
it  before  the  committee  for  debate  I  am 
willing  to  make  a  motion  that  the  request 
be  granted." 

"Excuse  me,"  put  in  Doctor  Johnson, 
"but  where  do  you  find  that  suggestion? 
'Here'  is  not  very  definite.  Where  is 
'here'?" 

"In  the  complaint-book,  which  I  hold  in 
my  hand,"  returned  Demosthenes,  putting 
a  pebble  in  his  mouth  so  that  he  might 
enunciate  more  clearly. 

A  frown  ruffled  the  serenity  of  Doctor 
Johnson's  brow. 

"In  the  complaint -book,  eh?"  he  said, 
slowly.  "I  thought  house  committees  were 
not  expected  to  pay  any  attention  to  com 
plaints  in  complaint-books.  I  never  heard 
of  its  being  done  before." 

"  Well,  I  can't  say  that  I  have  either," 
replied  Demosthenes,  chewing  thoughtful 
ly  on  the  pebble,  "but  I  suppose  com 
plaint-books  are  the  places  for  complaints. 


60  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

You  don't  expect  people  to  write  serial  sto 
ries  or  dialect  poems  in  them,  do  you  ?" 

"  That  isn't  the  point,  as  the  man  said 
to  the  assassin  who  tried  to  stab  him  with 
the  hilt  of  his  dagger,"  retorted  Doctor 
Johnson,  with  some  asperity.  "  Of  course, 
complaint-books  are  for  the  reception  of 
complaints — nobody  disputes  that.  What 
I  want  to  have  determined  is  whether  it  is 
necessary  or  proper  for  the  complaints  to 
go  further." 

"I  fancy  we  have  a  legal  right  to  take 
the  matter  up,"  said  Blackstone,  wearily  ; 
"though  I  don't  know  of  any  precedent 
for  such  action.  In  all  the  clubs  I  have 
known  the  house  committees  have  invari 
ably  taken  the  ground  that  the  complaint- 
book  was  established  to  guard  them  against 
the  annoyance  of  hearing  complaints.  This 
one,  however,  has  been  forced  upon  us  by 
our  secretary,  and  in  view  of  the  age  of  the 
complainants  I  think  we  cannot  well  de 
cline  to  give  them  a  specific  answer.  Re 
spect  for  age  is  de  rigueur  at  all  times,  like 
clean  hands.  I'll  second  the  motion." 


HOUSE   COMMITTEE   DISCUSS  THE   POETS     61 

"  I  think  the  Poets'  Corner  entirely  un 
necessary,"  said  Confucius.  "  This  isn't  a 
class  organization,  and  we  should  resist  any 
effort  to  make  it  or  any  portion  of  it  so. 
In  fact,  I  will  go  further  and  state  that  it 
is  my  opinion  that  if  we  do  any  legislating 
in  the  matter  at  all,  we  ought  to  discour 
age  rather  than  encourage  these  poets. 
They  are  always  littering  the  club  up  with 
themselves.  Only  last  Wednesday  I  came 
here  with  a  guest — no  less  a  person  than  a 
recently  deceased  Emperor  of  China — and 
what  was  the  first  sight  that  greeted  our 
eyes  ?" 

"I  give  it  up,"  said  Doctor  Johnson. 
"It  must  have  been  a  catacornered  sight, 
whatever  it  was,  if  the  Emperor's  eyes 
slanted  like  yours." 

"  No  personalities,  please,  Doctor,"  said 
Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  the  chairman,  rapping 
the  table  vigorously  with  the  shade  of  a 
handsome  gavel  that  had  once  adorned  the 
Roman  Senate-chamber. 

"  He's  only  a  Chinaman  1"  muttered 
Johnson. 


62  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

"  What  was  the  sight  that  greeted  your 
eyes,  Confucius  ?"  asked  Cassius. 

"  Omar  Khayyam  stretched  over  five  of 
the  most  comfortable  chairs  in  the  libra 
ry,"  returned  Confucius  ;  "  and  when  I 
ventured  to  remonstrate  with  him  he  lost 
his  temper,  and  said  I'd  spoiled  the  whole 
second  volume  of  the  Rubaiyat.  I  told 
him  he  ought  to  do  his  rubaiyatting  at 
home,  and  he  made  a  scene,  to  avoid  which 
I  hastened  with  my  guest  over  to  the  bill 
iard-room  ;  and  there,  stretched  at  full 
length  on  the  pool-table,  was  Robert  Burns 
trying  to  write  a  sonnet  on  the  cloth  with 
chalk  in  less  time  than  Villon  could  turn 
out  another,  with  two  lines  start,  on  the 
billiard-table  with  the  same  writing  mate 
rials.  Now  I  ask  you,  gentlemen,  if  these 
things  are  to  be  tolerated  ?  Are  they  not 
rather  to  be  reprehended,  whether  I  am  a 
Chinaman  or  not  ?" 

"  What  would  you  have  us  do,  then  ?" 
asked  Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  a  little  nettled. 
"Exclude  poets  altogether?  I  was  one, 
remember." 


HOUSE   COMMITTEE   DISCUSS  THE   POETS     63 

"  Oh,  but  not  much  of  one,  Sir  Walter," 
put  in  Doctor  Johnson,  deprecatingly. 

"  No,"  said  Confucius.  "  I  don't  want 
them  excluded,  but  they  should  be  con 
trolled.  You  don't  let  a  shoemaker  who 
has  become  a  member  of  this  club  turn  the 
library  sofas  into  benches  and  go  pegging 
away  at  boot-making,  so  why  should  you 
let  the  poets  turn  the  place  into  a  verse 
factory  ?  That's  what  I'd  like  to  know." 

"  I  don't  know  but  what  your  point  is 
well  taken,"  said  Blackstone,  "though.  I 
can't  say  I  think  your  parallels  are  very 
parallel.  A  shoemaker,  my  dear  Confucius, 
is  somewhat  different  from  a  poet." 

"Certainly, "said  Doctor  Johnson.  "Very 
different — in  fact,  different  enough  to  make 
a  conundrum  of  the  question — what  is  the 
difference  between  a  shoemaker  and  a  poet? 
One  makes  the  shoes  and  the  other  shakes 
the  muse — all  the  difference  in  the  world. 
Still,  I  don't  see  how  we  can  exclude  the 
poets.  It  is  the  very  democracy  of  this 
club  that  gives  it  life.  We  take  in  every 
body — peer,  poet,  or  what  not.  To  say  that 


64  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

this  man  shall  not  enter  because  he  is  this 
or  that  or  the  other  thing  would  result  in 
our  ultimately  becoming  a  class  organiza 
tion,  which,  as  Confucius  himself  says,  we 
are  not  and  must  not  be.  If  we  put  out 
the  poet  to  please  the  sage,  we'll  soon 
have  to  put  out  the  sage  to  please  the  fool, 
and  eo  on.  We'll  keep  it  up,  once  the  prec 
edent  is  established,  until  finally  it  will  be 
come  a  class  club  entirely  —  a  Plumbers* 
Club,  for  instance — and  how  absurd  that 
would  be  in  Hades !  No,  gentlemen,  it 
can't  be  done.  The  poets  must  and  shall 
be  preserved." 

"  What's  the  objection  to  class  clubs, 
anyhow  ?"  asked  Cassius.  "  I  don't  object 
to  them.  If  we  could  haye  had  political 
organizations  in  rny  day  I  might  not  have 
had  to  fall  on  my  sword  to  get  out  of  keep 
ing  an  engagement  I  had  no  fancy  for. 
Class  clubs  have  their  uses." 

"  No  doubt,"  said  Demosthenes.  "  Have 
all  the  class  clubs  you  want,  but  do  not 
make  one  of  this.  An  Authors'  Club,  where 
none  but  authors  are  admitted,  is  a  good 


HOUSE    COMMITTEE   DISCUSS  THE   POETS     65 

thing.  The  members  learn  there  that  there 
are  other  authors  than  themselves.  Poets' 
Clubs  are  a  good  thing ;  they  bring  poets 
into  contact  with  each  other,  and  they  learn 
what  a  bore  it  is  to  have  to  listen  to  a  poet 
reading  his  own  poem.  Pugilists'  Clubs 
are  good  ;  so  are  all  other  class  clubs  ;  but 
so  also  are  clubs  like  our  own,  which  takes 
in  all  who  are  worthy.  Here  a  poet  can 
talk  poetry  as  much  as  he  wants,  but  at  the 
same  time  he  hears  something  besides  po 
etry.  "We  must  stick  to  our  original  idea." 
"  Then  let  us  do  something  to  abate  the 
nuisance  of  which  I  complain,"  said  Con 
fucius.  "  Can't  we  adopt  a  house  rule  that 
poets  must  not  be  inspired  between  the 
hours  of  11  A.M.  and  5  P.M.,  or  in  the  even 
ing  after  eight ;  that  any  -poet  discovered 
using  more  than  five  arm-chairs  in  the  com 
position  of  a  quatrain  will  be  charged  two 
oboli  an  hour  for  each  chair  in  excess  of 
that  number ;  and  that  the  billiard-marker 
shall  be  required  to  charge  a  premium  of 
three  times  the  ordinary  fee  for  tables  used 
by  versifiers  in  lieu  of  writing-pads  ?" 


66  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

"  That  wouldn't  be  a  bad  idea,"  said  Sir 
Walter  Raleigh.  "  I,  as  a  poet  would  not 
object  to  that.  I  do  all  my  work  at  home, 
anyhow." 

"There's  another  phase  of  this  business 
that  we  haven't  considered  yet,  and  it's 
rather  important,"  said  Demosthenes,  tak 
ing  a  fresh  pebble  out  of  his  bonbonniere. 
"  That's  in  the  matter  of  stationery.  This 
club,  like  all  other  well  -  regulated  clubs, 
provides  its  members  with  a  suitable  sup 
ply  of  writing  materials.  Charon  informs 
me  that  the  waste-baskets  last  week  turned 
out  forty-two  reams  of  our  best  correspond 
ence  paper  on  which  these  poets  had  scrib 
bled  the  first  draft  of  their  verses.  Now  I 
don't  think  the  club  should  furnish  the 
poets  with  the  raw  material  for  their  poems 
any  more  than,  to  go  back  to  Confucius's 
shoemaker,  it  should  supply  leather  for  our 
cobblers." 

"What  do  you  mean  by  raw  material  for 
.poems  ?"  asked  Sir  Walter,  with  a  frown. 

"Pen,  ink,  and  paper.  What  else  ?"  said 
Demosthenes. 


HOUSE   COMMITTEE   DISCUSS  THE   POETS     67 

"  Doesn't  it  take  brains  to  write  a  poem  ?" 
said  Raleigh. 

"  Doesn't  it  take  brains  to  make  a  pair 
of  shoes  ?"  retorted  Demosthenes,  swallow 
ing  a  pebble  in  his  haste. 

"They've  got  a  right  to  the  stationery, 
though,"  put  in  Blackstone.  "A  clear  le 
gal  right  to  it.  If  they  choose  to  write 
poems  on  the  paper  instead  of  boring  peo 
ple  to  death  with  letters,  as  most  of  us  do, 
that's  their  own  affair." 

"  Well,  they're  very  wasteful,"  said  De 
mosthenes. 

"  We  can  meet  that  easily  enough,"  ob 
served  Cassius.  "Furnish  each  writing- 
table  with  a  slate.  I  should  think  they'd 
be  pleased  with  that.  It's  so  much  easier 
to  rub  out  the  wrong  word." 

"  Most  poets  prefer  to  rub  out  the  right 
word,"  growled  Confucius.  "Besides,  I 
shall  never  consent  to  slates  in  this  house 
boat.  The  squeaking  of  the  pencils  would 
be  worse  than  the  poems  themselves." 

"That's  true,"  said  Cassius.  "I  never 
thought  of  that.  If  a  dozen  poets  got  t<5 


68  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

work  on  those  slates  at  once,  a  fife  corps 
wouldn't  be  a  circumstance  to  them." 

"  Well,  it  all  goes  to  prove  what  I  have 
thought  all  along,"  said  Doctor  Johnson. 
"  Homer's  idea  is  a  good  one,  and  Samson 
was  wise  in  backing  it  up.  The  poets  need 
to  be  concentrated  somewhere  where  they 
will  not  be  a  nuisance  to  other  people,  and 
where  other  people  will  not  be  a  nuisance 
to  them.  Homer  ought  to  have  a  place  to 
compose  in  where  the  vingt-et-un  players 
will  not  interrupt  his  frenzies,  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  vingt-et-un  and  other  play 
ers  should  be  protected  from  the  wooers  of 
the  muse.  I'll  vote  to  have  the  Poets' 
Corner,  and  in  it  I  move  that  Cassius's 
slate  idea  be  carried  out.  It  will  be  a  great 
saving,  and  if  the  corner  we  select  be  far 
enough  away  from  the  other  corners  of  the 
club,  the  squeaking  of  the  slate-pencils  need 
bother  no  one." 

"I  agree  to  that,"  said  Blackstone. 
"  Only  I  think  it  should  be  understood  that, 
in  granting  the  petition  of  the  poets,  we  do 
not  bind  ourselves  to  yield  to  doctors  and 


HOUSE   COMMITTEE   DISCUSS  THE   POETS     69 

lawyers  and  shoemakers  and  plumbers  in 
case  they  should  each  want  a  corner  to 
themselves." 

"A  very  wise  idea,"  said  Sir  Walter. 
Whereupon  the  resolution  was  suitably 
worded,  and  passed  unanimously. 

Just  where  the  Poets'  Corner  is  to  be 
located  the  members  of  the  committee 
have  not  as  yet  decided,  although  Confu 
cius  is  strongly  in  favor  of  having  it 
placed  in  a  dingy  situated  a  quarter  of  a 
mile  astern  of  the  house-boat,  and  connect 
ed  therewith  by  a  slight  cord,  which  can 
be  easily  cut  in  case  the  squeaking  of  the 
poets'  slate-pencils  becomes  too  much  for 
the  nervous  system  of  the  members  who 
have  no  corner  of  their  own. 


VI 

SOME   THEORIES,  DARWINIAN   AWD 
OTHERWISE 

"  I  OBSERVE,"  said  Doctor  Darwin,  look 
ing  up  from  a  perusal  of  an  asbestos  copy 
of  the  London  Times — "I  observe  that  an 
American  professor  has  discovered  that 
monkeys  talk.  I  consider  that  a  very  in 
teresting  fact." 

"It  undoubtedly  is,"  observed  Doctor 
Livingstone, "  though  hardly  new.  I  never 
said  anything  about  it  over  in  the  other 
world,  but  I  discovered  years  ago  in  Africa 
that  monkeys  were  quite  as  well  able  to 
hold  a  sustained  conversation  with  each 
other  as  most  men  are." 

"  And  I,  too,"  put  in  Baron  Munchausen, 
"have  frequently  conversed  with  monkeys. 
I  made  myself  a  master  of  their  idioms 
during  my  brief  sojourn  in  —  ah — in — • 


3  g 


SOME    THEORIES,  DARWINIAN,  ETC.  71 

well,  never  mind  where.  I  never  could 
remember  the  names  of  places.  The  in 
teresting  point  is  that  at  one  period  of 
my  life  I  was  a  master  of  the  monkey  lan 
guage.  I  have  even  gone  so  far  as  to 
write  a  sonnet  in  Simian,  which  was  quite 
as  intelligible  to  the  uneducated  as  nine- 
tenths  of  the  sonnets  written  in  English  or 
American." 

"Do  you  mean  to  say  that  you  could 
acquire  the  monkey  accent  ?"  asked  Doc 
tor  Darwin,  immediately  interested. 

"  In  most  instances,"  returned  the  Baron, 
suavely,  "  though  of  course  not  in  all.  I 
found  the  same  difficulty  in  some  cases 
that  the  German  or  the  Chinaman  finds 
when  he  tries  to  speak  French.  A  China 
man  can  no  more  say  Trocadero,  for  in 
stance,  as  the  Frenchman  says  it,  than  he 
can  fly.  That  peculiar  throaty  aspirate 
the  Frenchman  gives  to  the  first  syllable, 
as  though  it  were  spelled  trhoque,  is  ut 
terly  beyond  the  Chinese — and  beyond  the 
American,  too,  whose  idea  of  the  tonsillar 
aspirate  leads  him  to  speak  of  the  troche- 


72  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

deero,  naturally  falling  back  upon  troches 
to  help  him  out  of  his  laryngeal  difficul 
ties." 

"You  ought  to  have  been  on  the  staff 
of  Punch,  Baron,"  said  Thackeray,  quietly. 
"  That  joke  would  have  made  you  immor 
tal." 

"  I  am  immortal,"  said  the  Baron.  "  But 
to  return  to  our  discussion  of  the  Simian 
tongue  :  as  I  was  saying,  there  were  some 
little  points  about  the  accent  that  I  could 
never  get,  and,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Ger 
man  and  Chinaman  with  the  French  lan 
guage,  the  trouble  was  purely  physical. 
When  you  consider  that  in  polite  Simian 
society  most  of  the  talkers  converse  while 
swinging  by  their  tails  from  the  limb  of  a 
tree,  with  a  sort  of  droning  accent,  which 
results  from  their  swaying  to  and  fro,  you 
will  see  at  once  why  it  was  that  I,  deprived 
by  nature  of  the  necessary  apparatus  with 
which  to  suspend  myself  in  mid-air,  was 
unable  to  quite  catch  the  quality  which 
gives  its  chief  charm  to  monkey-talk." 

"I  should  hardly  think  that  a  man  of 


SOME    THEORIES,  DARWINIAN,  ETC.          73 

your  fertile  resources  would  have  let  so 
small  a  thing  as  that  stand  in  his  way,"  said 
Doctor  Livingstone.  "  When  a  man  is 
able  to  make  a  reputation  for  himself  like 
yours,  in  which  material  facts  are  never 
allowed  to  interfere  with  his  doing  what 
he  sets  out  to  do,  he  ought  not  to  be 
daunted  by  the  need  of  a  tail.  If  you 
could  make  a  cherry-tree  grow  out  of  a 
deer's  head,  I  fail  to  see  why  you  could 
not  personally  grow  a  tail,  or  anything 
else  you  might  happen  to  need  for  the  at 
tainment  of  your  ends." 

"I  was  not  so  anxious  to  get  the  accent 
as  all  that,"  returned  the  Baron.  "I  don't 
think  it  is  necessary  for  a  man  to  make  a 
monkey  of  himself  just  for  the  pleasure  of 
mastering  a  language.  Reasoning  simi 
larly,  a  man  to  master  the  art  of  braying 
in  a  fashion  comprehensible  to  the  jackass 
of  average  intellect  should  make  a  jackass 
of  himself,  cultivate  his  ears,  and  learn  to 
kick,  so  as  properly  to  punctuate  his  sen 
tences  after  the  manner  of  most  conversa 
tional  beasts  of  that  kind." 


74  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

"  Then  you  believe  that  jackasses  talk, 
too,  do  you  ?"  asked  Doctor  Darwin. 

"  Why  not  ?"  said  the  Baron.  "  If  mon 
keys,  why  not  donkeys  ?  Certainly  they 
do.  All  creatures  have  some  means  of 
communicating  their  thoughts  to  each 
other.  Why  man  in  his  conceit  should 
think  otherwise  I  don't  know,  unless  it  be 
that  the  birds  and  beasts  in  their  conceit 
probably  think  that  they  alone  of  all  the 
creatures  in  the  world  can  talk." 

"  I  haven't  a  doubt,"  said  Doctor  Liv 
ingstone,  "  that  monkeys  listening  to  men 
and  women  talking  think  they  are  only 
jabbering." 

"They're  not  far  from  wrong  in  most 
cases  if  they  do,"  said  Doctor  Johnson, 
who  up  to  this  time  had  been  merely  an 
interested  listener.  "I've  thought  that 
many  a  time  myself." 

"  Which  is  perhaps,  in  a  slight  degree,  a 
confirmation  of  my  theory,"  put  in  Dar 
win.  "  If  Doctor  Johnson's  mind  runs  in 
the  same  channels  that  the  monkey's  mind 
runs  in,  why  may  we  not  say  that  Doctor 


SOME    THEORIES,  DARWINIAN,  ETC.  75 

Johnson,  being  a  man,  has  certain  qual 
ities  of  the  monkey,  and  is  therefore,  in  a 
sense,  of  the  same  strain  ?" 

"You  may  say  what  you  please,"  re 
torted  Johnson,  wrathfully,  "but  I'll  make 
you  prove  what  you  say  about  me." 

"  I  wouldn't  if  I  were  you,"  said  Doctor 
Livingstone,  in  a  peace-making  spirit.  "  It 
would  not  be  a  pleasant  task  for  you,  com 
pelling  our  friend  to  prove  you  descended 
from  the  ape.  I  should  think  you'd  prefer 
to  make  him  leave  it  unproved." 

"Have  monkeys  Bos  wells  ?"  queried 
Thackeray. 

"  I  don't  know  anything  about  'em," 
said  Johnson,  petulantly. 

"  No  more  do  I,"  said  Darwin,  "  aud  I 
didn't  mean  to  be  offensive,  my  dear  John 
son.  If  I  claim  Simian  ancestry  for  you, 
I  claim  it  equally  for  myself." 

"Well,  I'm  no  snob,"  said  Johnson,  un- 
mollified.  "If  you  want  to  brag  about 
your  ancestors,  do  it.  Leave  mine  alone. 
Stick  to  your  own  genealogical  orchard." 

"  Well,  I  believe  fully  that  we  are  all 


76  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

descended  from  the  ape,"  said  Mnnchausen. 
"  There  isn't  any  doubt  in  my  mind  that 
before  the  flood  all  men  had  tails.  Noah 
had  a  tail.  Shem,  Ham,  and  Japheth  had 
tails.  It's  perfectly  reasonable  to  believe 
it.  The  Ark  in  a  sense  proved  it.  It 
would  have  been  almost  impossible  for 
Noah  and  his  sons  to  construct  the  Ark  in 
the  time  they  did  with  the  assistance  of 
only  two  hands  apiece.  Think,  however, 
of  how  fast  they  could  work  with  the  as 
sistance  of  that  third  arm.  Noah  could 
hammer  a  clapboard  on  to  the  Ark  with 
two  hands  while  grasping  a  saw  and  cut 
ting  a  new  board  or  planing  it  off  with  his 
tail.  So  with  the  others.  We  all  know 
how  much  a  third  hand  would  help  us  at 
times." 

"  But  how  do  you  account  for  its  dis 
appearance?"  put  in  Doctor  Livingstone. 
"Is  it  likely  they  would  dispense  with 
such  a  useful  adjunct  ?" 

"No,  it  isn't;  but  there  are  various  ways 
of  accounting  for  its  loss,"  said  Munchau- 
sen.  "They  may  have  overworked  it 


SOME    THEORIES,  DARWINIAN,  ETC.  77 

building  the  Ark  ;  Shem,  Ham,  or  Japheth 
may  have  had  his  caught  in  the  door  of 
the  Ark  and  cut  off  in  the  hurry  of  the  de 
parture;  plenty  of  things  may  have  hap 
pened  to  eliminate  it.  Men  lose  their  hair 
and  their  teeth;  why  might  not  a  man  lose 
a  tail  ?  Scientists  say  that  coming  genera 
tions  far  in  the  future  will  be  toothless  and 
bald.  Why  may  it  not  be  that  through 
causes  unknown  to  us  we  are  similarly 
deprived  of  something  our  forefathers 
had?" 

"The  only  reason  for  man's  losing  his 
hair  is  that  he  wears  a  hat  all  the  time," 
said  Livingstone.  "  The  Derby  hat  is  the 
enemy  of  hair.  It  is  hot,  and  dries  up  the 
scalp.  You  might  as  well  try  to  raise  wa 
termelons  in  the  Desert  of  Sahara  as  to  try 
to  raise  hair  under  the  modern  hat.  In 
fact,  the  modern  hat  is  a  furnace." 

"  Well,  it's  a  mighty  good  furnace,"  ob 
served  Munchausen.  "  You  don't  have  to 
put  coal  on  the  modern  hat." 

"  Perhaps,"  interposed  Thackeray,  "  the 
ancients  wore  their  hats  on  their  tails." 


78  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

"  Well,  I  have  a  totally  different  theo 
ry,"  said  Johnson. 

"You  always  did  have,"  observed  Mun- 
chausen. 

"Very  likely,"  said  Johnson.  "To  be 
commonplace  never  was  my  ambition." 

"  What  is  your  theory  ?"  queried  Liv 
ingstone. 

"Well — I  don't  know,"  said  Johnson, 
"  if  it  be  worth  expressing." 

"  It  may  be  worth  sending  by  freight," 
interrupted  Thackeray.  "  Let  us  have  it.'* 

"Well,  I  believe,"  said  Johnson  —  "I 
believe  that  Adam  was  a  monkey." 

"He  behaved  like  one,"  ejaculated 
Thackeray. 

"I  believe  that  the  forbidden  tree  was 
a  tender  one,  and  therefore  the  only  one 
upon  which  Adam  was  forbidden  to  swing 
by  his  tail,"  said  Johnson. 

"  Clear  enough — so  far,"  said  Munchau- 
sen. 

"  But  that  the  possession  of  tails  by 
Adam  and  Eve  entailed  a  love  of  swing 
ing  thereby,  and  that  they  could  not  resist 


SOME    THEORIES  79 

the  temptation  to  swing  from  every  limb 
in  Eden,  and  that  therefore,  while  Adam 
was  off  swinging  on  other  trees,  Eve  took 
a  swing  on  the  forbidden  tree  ;  that  Adam, 
returning,  caught  her  in  the  act,  and  imme 
diately  gave  way  himself  and  swung,"  said 
Johnson. 

"  Then  you  eliminate  the  serpent  ?"  que 
ried  Darwin. 

"Not  a  bit  of  it,"  Johnson  answered. 
"The  serpent  was  the  tail.  Look  at  most 
snakes  to-day.  What  are  they  but  unat 
tached  tails  ?" 

"They  do  look  it,"  said  Darwin,  thought 
fully. 

"  Why,  it's  clear  as  day,"  said  Johnson. 
"As  punishment  Adam  and  Eve  lost  their 
tails,  and  the  tail  itself  was  compelled  to 
work  for  a  living  and  do  its  own  walking." 

"  I  never  thought  of  that,"  said  Darwin. 
"  It  seems  reasonable."  ,, 

"It  is  reasonable,"  said  Johnson. 

"And  the  snakes  of  the  present  day?" 
queried  Thackeray. 

"I  believe  to  be  the  missing  tails  of 


80  -     HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

men,"  said  Johnson.  "  Somewhere  in  the 
world  is  a  tail  for  every  man  and  woman 
and  child.  Where  one's  tail  is  no  one  can 
ever  say,  but  that  it  exists  simultaneously 
with  its  owner  I  believe.  The  abhorrence 
man  has  for  snakes  is  directly  attributable 
to  his  abhorrence  for  all  things  which  have 
deprived  him  of  something  that  is  good. 
If  Adam's  tail  had  not  tempted  him  to 
swing  on  the  forbidden  tree,  we  should 
all  of  us  have  been  able  through  life  to 
relax  from  business  cares  after  the  manner 
of  the  monkey,  who  is  happy  from  morn 
ing  until  night." 

"  Well,  I  can't  see  that  it  does  us  any 
good  to  sit  here  and  discuss  this  matter," 
said  Doctor  Livingstone.  "We  can't  reach 
any  conclusion.  The  only  way  to  settle 
the  matter,  it  seems  to  me,  is  to  go  directly 
to  Adam,  who  is  a  member  of  this  club, 
and  ask  him  how  it  was." 

"  That's  a  great  idea,"  said  Thackeray, 
scornfully.  "  You'd  look  well  going  up 
to  a  man  and  saying,  '  Excuse  me,  sir,  but 
»— ah — were  you  ever  a  monkey  ?'  " 


"'BOY,   IS   ADAM   IN   THE   CLUB-HOUSE   TO-DAY?'" 


SOME    THEORIES  81 

"To  say  nothing  of  catechisiug  a  man 
on  the  subject  of  an  old  and  dreadful  scan 
dal,"  put  in  Munchausen.  "  I'm  surprised 
at  you,  Livingstone.  African  etiquette 
seems  to  have  ruined  your  sense  of  pro 
priety." 

"I'd  just  as  lief  ask  him,"  said  Doc 
tor  Johnson.  "  Etiquette  ?  Bah  !  What 
business  has  etiquette  to  stand  in  the  way 
of  human  knowledge  ?  Conventionality 
is  the  last  thing  men  of  brains  should 
strive  after,  and  I,  for  one,  am  not  going 
to  be  bound  by  it." 

Here  Doctor  Johnson  touched  the  elec 
tric  bell,  and  in  an  instant  the  shade  of  a 
buttons  appeared. 

"Boy,  is  Adam  in  the  club-house  to 
day  ?"  asked  the  sage. 

"  I'll  go  and  see,  sir,"  said  the  boy,  and 
he  immediately  departed. 

"  Good  boy  that,"  said  Thackeray. 

"Yes;  but  the  service  in  this  club  is 
dreadful,  considering  what  we  might 
have,"  said  Darwin.  "With  Aladdin  a 
member  of  this  club,.  I  don't  see  why  we 


82  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

can't  have  his  lamp  with  genii  galore  to  re 
spond.  It  certainly  would  be  more  eco 
nomical." 

"  True ;  but  I,  for  one,  don't  care  to  fool 
with  genii,"  said  Munchausen.  "When 
one  member  can  summon  a  servant  who  is 
strong  enough  to  take  another  member  and 

O  o 

do  him  up  in  a  bottle  and  cast  him  into  the 
sea,  I  have  no  use  for  the  system.  Plain 
ordinary  mortal  shades  are  good  enough 
for  me." 

As  Munchausen  spoke,  the  boy  re 
turned. 

"Mr.  Adam  isn't  here  to-day,  sir,"  he 
said,  addressing  Doctor  Johnson.  "And 
Charon  says  he's  not  likely  to  be  here,  sir, 
seeing  as  how  his  account  is  closed,  not 
having  been  settled  for  three  months." 

"  Good,"  said  Thackeray.  "  I  was  afraid 
he  was  here.  I  don't  want  to  have  him 
asked  about  his  Eden  experiences  in  my 
behalf.  That's  personality." 

"  Well,  then,  there's  only  one  other  thing 
to  do,"  said  Darwin.  "  Munchausen  claims 
to  be  able  to  speak  Simian.  He  might  seek 


SOME    THEORIES  83 

out  some  of  the  prehistoric  monkeys  and 
put  the  question  to  them." 

"No,  thank  you,"  said  Munchausen. 
"I'm  a  little  rusty  in  the  language,  and, 
besides,  you  talk  like  an  idiot.  You  might 
as  well  speak  of  the  human  language  as 
the  Simian  language.  There  are  French 
monkeys  who  speak  monkey  French,  Afri 
can  monkeys  who  talk  the  most  barbarous 
kind  of  Zulu  monkey  patois,  and  Congo 
monkey  slang,  and  so  on.  Let  Johnson 
send  his  little  Boswell  out  to  drum  up  in 
formation.  If  there  is  anything  to  be 
found  out  he'll  get  it,  and  then  he  can 
tell  it  to  us.  Of  course  he  may  get  it  all 
wrong,  but  it  will  be  entertaining,  and 
we'll  never  know  any  difference." 

Which  seemed  to  the  others  a  good  idea, 
but  whatever  came  of  it  I  have  not  been 
informed. 


VII 

A   DISCUSSION   AS   TO   LADIES'   DAT 

"  I  MET  Queen  Elizabeth  just  now  on  the 
Row,"  said  Raleigh,  as  he  entered  the 
house-boat  and  checked  his  cloak. 

"Indeed?"  said  Confucius.  "What  if 
you  did  ?  Other  people  have  met  Queen 
Elizabeth.  There's  nothing  original  about 
that." 

"  True  ;  but  she  made  a  suggestion  to 
me  about  this  house-boat  which  I  think  is 
a  good  one.  She  says  the  women  are  all 
crazy  to  see  the  inside  of  it,"  said  Raleigh. 

"Thus  proving  that  immortal  woman  is 
no  different  from  mortal  woman,"  retorted 
Confucius.  "  They  want  to  see  the  inside 
of  everything.  Curiosity,  thy  name  is 
woman." 

"  Well,  I  am  sure  I  don't  see  why  men 
should  arrogate  to  themselves  the  sole 


A    DISCUSSION    AS    TO    LADIES'   DAY  85 

right  to  an  investigating  turn  of  mind," 
said  Raleigh,  impatiently.  "Why  shouldn't 
the  ladies  want  to  see  the  inside  of  this 
club-house?  It  is  a  compliment  to  us  that 
they  should,  and  I  for  one  am  in  favor  of 
letting  them,  and  I  am  going  to  propose 
that  in  the  Ides  of  March  we  give  a  ladies' 
day  here." 

"Then  I  shall  go  South  for  my  health  in 
the  Ides  of  March,"  said  Confucius,  angrily. 
"What  on  earth  is  a  club  for  if  it  isn't  to 
enable  men  to  get  away  from  their  wives 
once  in  a  while?  When  do  people  go  to 
clubs  ?  When  they  are  on  their  way  home 
—that's  when  ;  and  the  more  a  man's  at 
home  in  his  club,  the  less  he's  at  home 
when  he's  at  home.  I  suppose  you'll  be 
suggesting  a  children's  day  next,  and  after 
that  a  parrot's  or  a  canary-bird's  day." 

"  I  had  no  idea  you  were  such  a  woman- 
hater,"  said  Raleigh,  in  astonishment. 
"  What's  the  matter  ?  Were  you  ever 
disappointed  in  love  ?" 

"  I  ?  How  absurd  !"  retorted  Confucius, 
reddening.  "  The  idea  of  my  ever  being 


86  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

disappointed  in  love  !  I  never  met  the 
woman  who  could  bring  me  to  my  knees, 
although  1  was  married  in  the  other  world. 
What  became  of  Mrs.  C.  I  never  inquired. 
She  may  be  in  China  yet,  for  aught  I  know. 
I  regard  death  as  a  divorce." 

"  Your  wife  must  be  glad  of  it,"  said 
Raleigh,  somewhat  ungallantly ;  for,  to 
tell  the  truth,  he  was  nettled  by  Con- 
f ucius's  demeanor.  "  I  didn't  know,  how 
ever,  but  that  since  you  escaped  from 
China  and  came  here  to  Hades  you  might 
have  fallen  in  love  with  some  spirit  of 
an  age  subsequent  to  your  own  —  Mary 
Queen  of  Scots,  or  Joan  of  Arc,  or  some 
other  spook  —  who  rejected  you.  I  can't 
account  tor  your  dislike  of  women  other 
wise." 

"  Not  I,"  said  Confucius.  "  Hades  would 
have  a  less  classic  name  than  it  has  for  me 
if  I  were  hampered  with  a  family.  But  go 
along  and  have  your  ladies'  day  here,  and 
never  mind  my  reasons  for  preferring  my 
own  society  to  that  of  the  fair  sex.  I  can 
at  least  stay  at  home  that  day.  What  do 


A    DISCUSSION    AS    TO    LADIES7  DAY          87 

you  propose  to  do — throw  open  the  house 
to  the  wives  of  members,  or  to  all  ladies, 
irrespective  of  their  husbands'  membership 
here  ?" 

"I  think  the  latter  plan  would  be  the 
better,"  said  Raleigh.  "  Otherwise  Queen 
Elizabeth,  to  whom  I  am  indebted  for  the 
suggestion,  would  be  excluded.  She  never 
married,  you  know." 

"  Didn't  she  ?"  said  Confucius.  "  No,  I 
didn't  know  it  ;  but  that  doesn't  prove 
anything.  When  I  went  to  school  we  didn't 
study  the  history  of  the  Elizabethan  period. 
She  didn't  have  absolute  sway  over  Eng 
land,  then  ?" 

"  She  had  ;  but  what  of  that  ?"  queried 
Raleigh. 

"  Do  you  mean  to  say  that  she  lived  and 
died  an  old  maid  from  choice  ?"  demanded 
Confucius. 

"  Certainly  I  do,"  said  Raleigh.  "  And 
why  should  I  not  tell  you  that  ?" 

"  For  a  very  good  and  sufficient  reason," 
retorted  Confucius,  "  which  is,  in  brief,  that 
I  am  not  a  marine.  I  may  dislike  women, 


88  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

my  dear  Raleigh,  but  I  know  them  better 
than  you  do,  gallant  as  you  are  ;  and  when 
you  tell  me  in  one  and  the  same  moment 
that  a  woman  holding  absolute  sway  over 
men  yet  lived  and  died  an  old  maid,  you 
must  not  be  indignant  if  I  smile  and  bite 
the  end  of  my  thumb,  which  is  the  Chinese 
way  of  saying  that's  all  in  your  eye,  Betty 
Martin." 

"Believe  it  or  not,  you  poor  old  back 
number,"  retorted  Raleigh,  hotly.  "  It  al 
ters  nothing.  Queen  Elizabeth  could  have 
married  a  hundred  times  over  if  she  had 
wished.  I  know  I  lost  my  head  there  com 
pletely." 

"  That  shows,  Sir  Walter,"  said  Dryden, 
with  a  grin,  "  how  wrong  you  are.  You 
lost  your  head  to  King  James.  Hi !  Shake 
speare,  here's  a  man  doesn't  know  who 
chopped  his  head  off." 

Raleigh's  face  flushed  scarlet.  "'Tis 
better  to  have  had  a  head  and  lost  it,"  he 
cried,  "  than  never  to  have  had  a  head  at 
all !  Mark  you,  Dryden,  my  boy,  it  ill  be 
fits  you  to  scoff  at  me  for  my  misfortune. 


A    DISCUSSION    AS    TO    LADIES     DAY  89 

for  dust  thou  art,  and  to  dust  tbou  hast  re 
turned,  if  word  from  t'other  side  about  thy 
books  and  that  which  in  and  on  them  lies 
be  true." 

"  Whate'er  be  said  about  my  books,"  said 
Dry  den,  angrily,  "be  they  read  or  be  they 
not,  'tis  mine  they  are,  and  none  there  be 
who  dare  dispute  their  authorship." 

"Thus  proving  that  men,  thank  Heaven, 
are  still  sane,"  ejaculated  Doctor  Johnson. 
"To  assume  the  authorship  of  Dryden 
would  be  not  so  much  a  claim,  my  friend, 
as  a  confession." 

"  Shades  of  the  mighty  Chow  !"  cried 
Confucius.  "An'  will  ye  hear  the  poets 
squabble  !  Egad  !  A  ladies'  day  could 
hardly  introduce  into  our  midst  a  more 
diverting  disputation." 

"  We're  all  getting  a  little  high-flown  in 
our  phraseology,"  put  in  Shakespeare  at  this 
point.  "Let's  quit  talking  in  blank-verse 
and  come  down  to  business.  I  think  a  la 
dies'  day  would  be  great  sport.  I'll  write 
a  poem  to  read  on  the  occasion." 

"  Then  I  oppose  it  with  all  my  heart," 


90  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STTX 

said  Doctor  Johnson.  "  Why  do  you  al 
ways  want  to  make  our  entertainments 
commonplace  ?  Leave  occasional  poems  to 
mortaK  I  never  knew  an  occasional  poem 
yet  that  was  worthy  of  an  immortal." 

"That's  precisely  why  I  want  to  write 
one  occasional  poem.  I'd  make  it  worthy," 
Shakespeare  answered.  "  Like  this,  for  in 
stance  : 

Most  fair,  most  sweet,  most  beauteous  of  ladies, 
TJie  greatest  charm  in  all  ye  realm  of  Hades. 

Why,  my  dear  Doctor,  such  an  opportunity 
for  rhyming  Hades  with  ladies  should  not 
be  lost." 

"  That  just  proves  what  I  said,"  said 
Johnson.  "  Any  idiot  can  make  ladies 
rhyme  with  Hades.  It  requires  absolute 
genius  to  avoid  the  temptation.  You  are 
great  enough  to  make  Hades  rhyme  with 
bicycle  if  you  choose  to  do  it — but  no,  you 
succumb  to  the  temptation  to  be  common 
place.  Bah  !  One  of  these  modern  draw 
ing-room  poets  with  three  sections  to  his 
name  couldn't  do  worse." 


A    DISCUSSION    AS    TO    LADIES'    DAY          91 

"  On  general  principles,"  said  Raleigh, 
"  Johnson  is  right.  We  invite  these  peo 
ple  here  to  see  our  club-house,  not  to  give 
them  an  exhibition  of  our  metrical  powers, 
and  I  think  all  exercises  of  a  formal  nature 
should  be  frowned  upon." 

"Very  well,"  said  Shakespeare.  "Go 
ahead.  Have  your  own  way  about  it.  Get 
out  your  brow  and  frown.  I'm  perfectly 
willing  to  save  myself  the  trouble  of  writ 
ing  a  poem.  Writing  real  poetry  isn't 
easy,  as  you  fellows  would  have  discovered 
for  yourselves  if  you'd  ever  tried  it." 

"  To  pass  over  the  arrogant  assumption 
of  the  gentleman  who  has  just  spoken,  with 
the  silence  due  to  a  proper  expression  of 
our  contempt  therefor,"  said  Dry  den,  slow 
ly,  "  I  think  in  case  we  do  have  a  ladies' 
day  here  we  should  exercise  a  most  careful 
supervision  over  the  invitation  list.  For 
instance,  wouldn't  it  be  awkward  for  our 
good  friend  Henry  the  Eighth  to  encounter 
the  various  Mrs.  Henrys  here  ?  Would  it 
not  likewise  be  awkward  for  them  to  meet 
each  other  ?" 


92  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

"  Your  point  is  well  taken,"  said  Doctor 
Johnson.  "I  don't  know  whether  the 
King's  matrimonial  ventures  are  on  speak 
ing  terms  with  each  other  or  not,  but  un 
der  any  circumstances  it  would  hardly  be 
a  pleasing  spectacle  for  Katharine  of  Arra- 
gon  to  see  Henry  running  his  legs  off  get 
ting  cream  and  cakes  for  Anne  Boleyn  ;  nor 
would  Anne  like  it  much  if,  on  the  other 
hand,  Henry  chose  to  behave  like  a  gentle 
man  and  a  husband  to  Jane  Seymour  or 
Katharine  Parr.  I  think,  if  the  members 
themselves  are  to  send  out  the  invitations, 
they  should  each  be  limited  to  two  cards, 
with  the  express  understanding  that  no- 
member  shall  be  permitted  to  invite  more 
than  one  wife." 

"  That's  going  to  be  awkward,"  said  Ra 
leigh,  scratching  his  head  thoughtfully. 
"  Henry  is  such  a  hot-headed  fellow  that  he 
might  resent  the  stipulation." 

"I  think  he  would,"  said  Confucius. 
"  I  think  he'd  be  as  mad  as  a  hatter  at 
your  insinuation  that  he  would  invite  any 
of  his  wives,  if  all  I  hear  of  him  is  true  j 


A    DISCUSSION    AS    TO    LADIES7    DAT          93 

and  what  I've  heard,  Wolsey  has  told 
me." 

"  He  knew  a  thing  or  two  about  Henry," 
said  Shakespeare.  "If  you  don't  believe 
it,  just  read  that  play  of  mine  that  Beau 
mont  and  Fletcher — er — ah — thought  so 
much  of." 

"You  came  near  giving  your  secret 
away  that  time,  William,"  said  Johnson, 
with  a  sly  smile,  and  giving  the  Avonian 
a  dig  between  the  ribs. 

"  Secret !  I  haven't  any  secret,"  said 
Shakespeare,  a  little  acridly.  "  It's  the 
truth  I'm  telling  you.  Beaumont  and 
Fletcher  did  admire  Henry  the  Eighth?'' 

"  Thereby  showing  their  conceit,  eh  ?" 
said  Johnson. 

"  Oh,  of  course,  I  didn't  write  anything, 
did  I?"  cried  Shakespeare.  "Everybody 
wrote  my  plays  but  me.  I'm  the  only  per 
son  that  had  no  hand  in  Shakespeare.  It 
seems  to  me  that  joke  is  about  worn  out, 
Doctor.  I'm  getting  a  little  tired  of  it  my 
self ;  but  if  it  amuses  you,  why,  keep  it  up. 
./know  who  wrote  my  plays,  and  whatever 


94  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

you  may  say  cannot  affect  the  facts.  Next 
thing  you  fellows  will  be  saying  that  I 
didn't  write  my  own  autographs." 

"I  didn't  say  that,"  said  Johnson,  quiet 
ly.  "  Only  there  is  no  internal  evidence  in 
your  autographs  that  you  knew  how  to 
spell  your  name  if  you  did.  A  man  who 
signs  his  name  Shixpur  one  day  and  Shike- 
speare  the  next  needn't  complain  if  the 
Bank  of  Posterity  refuses  to  honor  his 
check." 

"They'd  honor  my  check  quick  enough 
these  days,"  retorted  Shakespeare.  "  When 
a  man's  autograph  brings  five  thousand 
dollars,  or  one  thousand  pounds,  in  the  auc 
tion-room,  there  isn't  a  bank  in  the  world 
fool  enough  to  decline  to  honor  any  check 
he'll  sign  under  a  thousand  dollars,  or  two 
hundred  pounds." 

"  I  fancy  you're  right,"  put  in  Raleigh. 
"  But  your  checks  or  your  plays  have  noth 
ing  to  do  with  ladies'  day.  Let's  get  to 
some  conclusion  in  this  matter." 

"  Yes,"  said  Confucius.  "  Let's.  Ladies' 
day  is  becoming  a  dreadful  bore,  and  if 


A    DISCUSSION    AS    TO    LADIES*  DAY          95 

we  don't  hurry  up  the  billiard-rooni  wili 
be  full." 

"  Well,  I  move  we  get  up  a  petition  to 
the  council  to  have  it,"  said  Dryden. 

"  I  agree,"  said  Confucius,  "  and  I'll 
sign  it.  If  there's  one  way  to  avoid  hav 
ing  ladies'  day  in  the  future,  it's  to  have 
one  now  and  be  done  with  it." 

"  All  right,"  said  Shakespeare.  "  I'll  sign 
too." 

"As  —  er  —  Shixpur  or  Shikespeare ?" 
queried  Johnson. 

"Let  him  alone,"  said  Raleigh.  "He's 
getting  sensitive  about  that ;  and  what  you 
need  to  learn  more  than  anything  else  is 
that  it  isn't  manners  to  twit  a  man  on  facts. 
What's  bothering  you,  Dryden  ?  You  look 
like  a  man  with  an  idea." 

"It  has  just  occurred  to  me,"  said  Dry- 
den,  "  that  while  we  can  safely  leave  the 
question  of  Henry  the  Eighth  and  his 
wives  to  the  wisdom  of  the  council,  we 
ought  to  pay  some  attention  to  the  advis 
ability  of  inviting  Lucretia  Borgia.  I'd 
hate  to  eat  any  supper  if  she  came  within  a 


96  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

mile  of  the  banqueting-hall.  If  she  comes 
you'll  have  to  appoint  a  tasting  commit 
tee  before  I'll  touch  a  drop  of  punch  or  eat 
a  speck  of  salad." 

"We  might  recommend  the  appointment 
of  Raleigh  to  look  after  the  fair  Lucretia 
and  see  that  she  has  no  poison  with  her,  or 
if  she  has,  to  keep  her  from  dropping  it  into 
the  salads,"  said  Confucius,  with  a  sidelong 
glance  at  Raleigh.  "He's  the  especial 
champion  of  woman  in  this  club,  and  no 
doubt  would  be  proud  of  the  distinction." 
"I  would  with  most  women,"  said  Ra 
leigh.  "  But  I  draw  the  line  at  Lucretia 
Borgia." 

And  so  a  petition  was  drawn  up,  signed, 
and  sent  to  the  council,  and  they,  after 
mature  deliberation,  decided  to  have  the 
ladies'  day,  to  which  all  the  ladies  in  Hades, 
excepting  Lucretia  Borgia  and  Delilah, 
were  to  be  duly  invited,  only  the  date  was 
not  specified.  Delilah  was  excluded  at  the 
request  of  Samson,  whose  convincing  mus 
cles,  rather  than  his  arguments,  completely 
won  over  all  opposition  to  hi»  proposition. 


UJCRETIA    BORGIA    AND    DELILAH    WERE    NOT    INTITED 


VIII 

A    DISCONTENTED    SHADE 

"!T  seems  to  me,"  said  Shakespeare, 
wearily,  one  afternoon  at  the  club — "  that 
this  business  of  being  immortal  is  pretty 
dull.  Didn't  somebody  once  say  he'd  rath 
er  ride  fifty  years  on  a  trolley  in  Europe 
than  on  a  bicycle  in  Cathay  ?" 

"I  never  heard  any  such  remark  by  any 
self-respecting  person,"  said  Johnson. 

"I  said  something  like  it,"  observed 
Tennyson. 

Doctor  Johnson  looked  around  to  see 
who  it  was  that  spoke. 

"  You  ?"  he  cried.  "  And  who,  pray, 
may  you  be  ?" 

"My  name  is  Tennyson,"  replied  the 
poet, 

"And  a  very  good  name  it  is,"  said 
Shakespeare. 


98  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

"I  am  not  aware  that  I  ever  heard  the 
name  before,"  said  Doctor  Johnson.  "  Did 
you  make  it  yourself  ?" 

"  I  did,"  said  the  late  laureate,  proudly. 

"  In  what  pursuit  ?"  asked  Doctor  John 
son. 

"Poetry,"  said  Tennyson.  "I  wrote 
*  Locksley  Hall '  and  '  Come  into  the  Gar 
den,  Maude.' " 

"  Humph  !"  said  Doctor  Johnson.  "  I 
never  read  'em." 

"  Well,  why  should  you  have  read 
them?"  snarled  Carlyle.  "They  were 
written  after  you  moved  over  here,  and 
they  were  good  stuff.  You  needn't  think 
because  you  quit,  the  whole  world  put  up 
its  shutters  and  went  out  of  business.  I 
did  a  few  things  myself  which  I  fancy  you 
never  heard  of." 

"  Oh,  as  for  that,"  retorted  Doctor  John 
son,  with  a  smile,  "  I've  heard  of  you ; 
you  are  the  man  who  wrote  the  life  of 
Frederick  the  Great  in  nine  hundred  and 
two  volumes — " 

"  Seven !"  snapped  Carlyle. 


A    DISCONTENTED    SHADE  99 

"  Well,  seven  then,"  returned  Johnson. 
"  I  never  saw  the  work,  but  I  heard  Fred 
erick  speaking  of  it  the  other  day.  Bona 
parte  asked  him  if  he  had  read  it,  and 
Frederick  said  no,  he  hadn't  time.  Bona 
parte  cried,  '  Haven't  time  ?  Why,  my 
dear  king,  you've  got  all  eternity.'  'I 
know  it,'  replied  Frederick,  'but  that  isn't 
enough.  Read  a  page  or  two,  my  dear 
Napoleon,  and  you'll  see  why.'  " 

"  Frederick  will  have  his  joke,"  said 
Shakespeare,  with  a  wink  at  Tennyson  and 
a  smile  for  the  two  philosophers,  intended, 
no  doubt,  to  put  them  in  a  more  agreeable 
frame  of  mind.  "  Why,  he  even  asked  me 
the  other  day  why  I  never  wrote  a  tragedy 
about  him,  completely  ignoring  the  fact 
that  he  came  along  many  years  after  I 
had  departed.  I  spoke  of  that,  and  he 
said,  'Oh, I  was  only  joking.'  I  apologized. 
'I  didn't  know  that,'  said  I.  'And  why 
should  you?'  said  he.  'You're  English.'" 

"A  very  rude  remark,"  said  Johnson. 
"As  if  we  English  were  incapable  of  see 
ing  a  joke !" 


100  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

"  Exactly,"  put  in  Carlyle.  "  It  strikes 
me  as  the  absurdest  notion  that  the  Eng 
lishman  can't  see  a  joke.  To  the  mind 
that  is  accustomed  to  snap  judgments  I 
have  no  doubt  the  Englishman  appears  to 
be  dull  of  apprehension,  but  the  philoso 
phy  of  the  whole  matter  is  apparent  to  the 
mind  that  takes  the  trouble  to  investigate. 
The  Briton  weighs  everything  carefully 
before  he  commits  himself,  and  even 
though  a  certain  point  may  strike  him  as 
funny,  he  isn't  going  to  laugh  until  he  has 
fully  made  up  his  mind  that  it  is  funny. 
I  remember  once  riding  down  Piccadilly 
with  Froude  in  a  hansom  cab.  Froude  had 
a  copy  of  Punch  in  his  hand,  and  he  began 
to  laugh  immoderately  over  something.  I 
leaned  over  his  shoulder  to  see  what  he  was 
laughing  at.  '  That  isn't  so  funny,'  said  I, 
as  I  read  the  paragraph  on  which  his  eye 
was  resting.  *  No,'  said  Froude.  '  I  wasn't 
laughing  at  that.  I  was  enjoying  the  joke 
that  appeared  in  the  same  relative  position 
in  last  week's  issue.'  Now  that's  the  point 
— the  whole  point.  The  Englishman  al- 


"'WHAT  is  THE  AVERAGE  WKIGHT  OF  A  COPY  OF  "PCNCH"?' 

DRAWLED    ARTEMAS    WARD1' 


A    DISCONTENTED    SHADE  101 

ways  laughs  over  last  week's  Punch,  not 
this  week's,  and  that  is  why  you  will  find  a 
file  of  that  interesting  journal  in  the  home 
of  all  well-to-do  Britons.  It  is  the  back 
number  that  amuses  him  —  which  mere 
ly  proves  that  he  is  a  deliberative  person 
who  weighs  even  his  humor  carefully  be 
fore  giving  way  to  his  emotions." 

"  What  is  the  average  weight  of  a  copy 
of  Punch  ?"  drawled  Artemas  Ward,  who 
had  strolled  in  during  the  latter  part  of 
the  conversation. 

Shakespeare  snickered  quietly,  but  Car- 
lyle  and  Johnson  looked  upon  the  intruder 
severely. 

"We  will  take  that  question  into  con 
sideration,"  said  Carlyle.  "Perhaps  to 
morrow  we  shall  have  a  definite  answer 
ready  for  you." 

"Never  mind,"  returned  the  humorist. 
"You've  proved  your  point.  Tennyson 
tells  me  you  find  life  here  dull,  Shake 
speare." 

"Somewhat,"  said  Shakespeare.  "I 
don't  know  about  the  rest  of  you  fellows, 


102  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON   THE    STYX 

but  I  was  not  cut  out  for  an  eternity  of 
ease.  I  must  have  occupation,  and  the 
stage  isn't  popular  here.  The  trouble 
about  putting  on  a  play  here  is  that  our 
managers  are  afraid  of  libel  suits.  The 
chances  are  that  if  I  should  write  a  play 
with  Cassius  as  the  hero,  Cassius  would  go 
to  the  first  night's  performance  with  a  dag 
ger  concealed  in  his  toga,  with  which  to 
punctuate  his  objections  to  the  lines  put 
in  his  mouth.  There  is  nothing  I'd  like 
better  than  to  manage  a  theatre  in  this 
place,  but  think  of  the  riots  we'd  have ! 
Suppose,  for  an  instant,  that  I  wrote  a  play 
about  Bonaparte !  He'd  have  a  box,  and 
when  the  rest  of  you  spooks  called  for 
the  author  at  the  end  of  the  third  act,  if 
he  didn't  happen  to  like  the  play  he'd 
greet  me  with  a  salvo  of  artillery  instead 
of  applause." 

"He  wouldn't  if  you  made  him  out  a 
great  conqueror  from  start  to  finish,"  said 
Tennyson. 

"  No  doubt,"  returned  Shakespeare,  sad 
ly;  "but  in  that  event  Wellington  would 


A   DISCONTENTED    SHADE  103 

be  in  the  other  stage-box,  and  I'd  get  the 
greeting  from  him." 

"Why  come  out  at  all?"  asked  Johnson. 

"  Why  come  out  at  all  ?"  echoed  Shake 
speare.  "  What  fun  is  there  in  writing  a 
play  if  you  can't  come  out  and  show  your 
self  at  the  first  night?  That's  the  au 
thor's  reward.  If  it  wasn't  for  the  first- 
night  business,  though,  all  would  be  plain 
sailing." 

"  Then  why  don't  you  begin  it  the  sec 
ond  night?"  drawled  Ward. 

"  How  the  deuce  could  you  ?"  put  in 
Carlyle. 

"  A  most  extraordinary  proposition !" 
sneered  Johnson. 

"Yes,"  said  Ward;  "but  wait  a  week — 
you'll  see  the  point  then." 

"  There  isn't  any  doubt  in  my  mind," 
said  Shakespeare,  reverting  to  his  original 
proposition,  "  that  the  only  perfectly  sat 
isfactory  life  is  under  a  system  not  yet 
adopted  in  either  world — the  one  we  have 
quitted  or  this.  There  we  had  hard  work 
in  which  our  mortal  limitations  hampered 


104  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

us  grievously ;  here  we  have  the  freedom 
of  the  immortal  with  no  hard  work  ;  in 
other  words,  now  that  we  feel  like  fight 
ing-cocks,  there  isn't  any  fighting  to  be 
done.  The  great  life,  in  my  estimation, 
would  be  to  return  to  earth  and  battle 
with  mortal  problems,  but  equipped  men 
tally  and  physically  with  immortal  weap 
ons." 

"  Some  people  don't  know  when  they 
are  well  off,"  said  Beau  Brummel.  "  This 
strikes  me  as  being  an  ideal  life.  There 
are  no  tailors  bills  to  pay — we  are  our 
selves  nothing  but  memories,  and  a  mem 
ory  can  clothe  himself  in  the  shadow  of 
his  former  grandeur — I  clothe  myself  in 
the  remembrance  of  my  departed  clothes, 
and  as  my  memory  is  good  I  flatter  my 
self  I'm  the  best-dressed  man  here.  The 
fact  that  there  are  ghosts  of  departed  un 
paid  bills  haunting  my  bedside  at  night 
doesn't  bother  me  in  the  least,  because  the 
bailiffs  that  in  the  old  life  lent  terror  to 
an  overdue  account,  thanks  to  our  benefi 
cent  system  here,  are  kept  in  the  less 


A    DISCONTENTED    SHADE  105 

agreeable  sections  of  Hades.  I  used  to 
regret  that  bailiffs  were  such  low  people, 
but  now  I  rejoice  at  it.  If  they  had  been 
of  a  different  order  they  might  have  proven 
unpleasant  here." 

"  You  are  right,  my  dear  Brummel,"  in 
terposed  Munchausen.  "  This  life  is  far 
preferable  to  that  in  the  other  sphere. 
Any  of  you  gentlemen  who  happen  to 
have  had  the  pleasure  of  reading  my  me 
moirs  must  have  been  struck  with  the 
tremendous  difficulties  that  encumbered 
my  progress.  If  I  wished  for  a  rare  liq 
ueur  for  my  luncheon,  a  liqueur  served  only 
at  the  table  of  an  Oriental  potentate,  more 
jealous  of  it  than  of  his  one  thousand 
queens,  I  had  to  raise  armies,  charter  ships, 
and  wage  warfare  in  which  feats  of  in 
credible  valor  had  to  be  performed  by 
myself  alone  and  unaided  to  secure  the 
desired  thimbleful.  I  have  destroyed  em 
pires  for  a  bon-bon  at  great  expense  of 
nervous  energy." 

"  That's  very  likely  true,"  said  Carlyle. 
"I  should  think  your  feats  of  strength 


106  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

would  have  wrecked  your  imagination  in 
time." 

"  Not  so,"  said  Munchausen.  "  On  the 
contrary,  continuous  exercise  served  only 
to  make  it  stronger.  But,  as  I  was  going 
to  say,  in  this  life  we  have  none  of  these 
fearful  obstacles — it  is  a  life  of  leisure  ;  and 
if  I  want  a  bird  and  a  cold  bottle  at  any 
time,  instead  of  placing  my  life  in  peril 
and  jeopardizing  the  peace  of  all  mankind 
to  get  it,  I  have  only  to  summon  before 
me  the  memory  of  some  previous  bird  and 
cold  bottle,  dine  thereon  like  a  well-ordered 
citizen,  and  smoke  the  spirit  of  the  best 
cigar  my  imagination  can  conjure  up." 

"  You  miss  my  point,"  said  Shakespeare. 
"  I  don't  say  this  life  is  worse  or  better 
than  the  other  we  used  to  live.  What  I 
do  say  is  that  a  combination  of  both  would 
suit  me.  In  short,  I'd  like  to  live  here 
and  go  to  the  other  world  every  day  to 
business,  like  a  suburban  resident  who 
sleeps  in  the  country  and  makes  his  living 
in  the  city.  For  instance,  why  shouldn't 
I  dwell  here  and  go  to  London  every  day, 


SHAKESPEARE    AS    A    SUBURBAN    RESIDENT 


A    DISCONTENTED    SHADE  107 

hire  an  office  there,  and  put  out  a  sign 
something  like  this  : 


WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 
DRAMATIST 


Plays  written  while  j/ou  wait 


I  guess  I'd  find  plenty  to  do." 

"  Guess  again,"  said  Tennyson.  "  My 
dear  boy,  you  forget  one  thing.  You  are 
out  of  date.  People  don't  go  to  the 
theatres  to  hear  you,  they  go  to  see  the 
people  who  do  you." 

"  That  is  true,"  said  Ward.  "  And  they 
do  do  you,  ray  beloved  William.  It's  a 
wonder  to  me  you  are  not  dizzy  turning 
over  in  your  grave  the  way  they  do  you." 

"Can  it  be  that  I  can  ever  be  out  of 
date  ?"  asked  Shakespeare.  "  I  know,  of 
course,  that  I  have  to  be  adapted  at  times  ; 
but  to  be  wholly  out  of  date  strikes  me  as 
a  hard  fate." 


108  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STTX 

"You're  not  out  of  date,"  interposed 
Carlyle  ;  "  the  date  is  out  of  you.  There 
is  a  great  demand  for  Shakespeare  in  these 
days,  but  there  isn't  any  stuff." 

"  Then  I  should  succeed,"  said  Shake- 
Bpeare. 

"  No,  I  don't  think  so,"  returned  Car 
lyle.  "  You  couldn't  stand  the  pace.  The 
world  revolves  faster  to-day  than  it  did  in 
your  time — men  write  three  or  four  plays 
at  once.  This  is  what  you  might  call  a 
Type-writer  Age,  and  to  keep  up  with  the 
procession  you'd  have  to  work  as  you 
never  worked  before." 

"  That  is  true,"  observed  Tennyson. 
"You'd  have  to  learn  to  be  ambidex 
trous,  so  that  you  could  keep  two  type 
writing  machines  going  at  once  ;  and,  to 
be  perfectly  frank  with  you,  I  cannot  even 
conjure  up  in  my  fancy  a  picture  of  you 
knocking  out  a  tragedy  with  the  right 
hand  on  one  machine,  while  your  left  hand 
is  fashioning  a  farce-comedy  on  another." 

"  He  might  do  as  a  great  many  modern 
writers  do/'  said  Ward  ;  "  go  in  for  the 


A    DISCONTENTED    SHADE  109 

Paper-doll  Drama.  Cut  the  whole  thing 
out  with  a  pair  of  scissors.  As  the  poet 
might  have  said  if  he'd  been  clever 
enough : 

Oh,  bring  me  the  scissors, 
And  bring  me  the  glue, 

And  a  couple  of  dozen  old  plays. 
I'll  cut  out  and  paste 
A  drama  for  you 

That  '//  run  for  quite  sixty -two  days. 

Oh,  bring  me  a  dress 
Made  of  satin  and  lace, 

And  a  book — say  Joe  Miller's — of  wit ; 
And  ril  make  the  old  dramatists 
Blue  in  the  face 

With  the  play  that  Til  turn  out  for  it. 

So  bring  me  the  scissors, 
And  bring  me  tJie  paste, 

And  a  dozen  fine  old  comedies  ; 
A  fine  line  of  dresses, 
And  popular  taste 

Til  make  a  strong  effort  to  please. 

"  You  draw  a  very  blue  picture,  it  seems 
to  me,"  said  Shakespeare,  sadly. 


110  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

"  Well,  it's  true,"  said  Carlyle.  "  The 
world  isn't  at  all  what  it  used  to  be  in 
any  one  respect,  and  you  fellows  who 
made  great  reputations  centuries  ago 
wouldn't  have  even  the  ghost  of  a  show 
now.  I  don't  believe  Homer  could  get  a 
poem  accepted  by  a  modern  magazine, 
and  while  the  comic  papers  are  still  print 
ing  Diogenes'  jokes  the  old  gentleman 
couldn't  make  enough  out  of  them  in 
these  days  to  pay  taxes  on  his  tub,  let 
alone  earning  his  bread." 

"  That  is  exactly  so,"  said  Tennyson. 
"  I'd  be  willing  to  wager  too  that,  in  the 
line  of  personal  prowess,  even  D'Arta- 
gnan  and  Athos  and  Porthos  and  Aramis 
couldn't  stand  London  for  one  day." 

"  Or  New  York  either,"  said  Mr.  Bar- 
num,  who  had  been  an  interested  listener. 
"  A  New  York  policeman  could  have  man 
aged  that  quartet  with  one  hand." 

"  Then,"  said  Shakespeare,  "  in  the  opin 
ion  of  you  gentlemen,  we  old-time  lions 
would  appear  to  modern  eyes  to  be  more 
or  less  stuffed  ?" 


A   DISCONTENTED    SHADE  111 

"  That's  about  the  size  of  it,"  said  Car- 
lyle. 

"  But  you'd  draw,"  said  Barnum,  his 
face  lighting  up  with  pleasure.  "  You'd 
drive  a  five -legged  calf  to  suicide  from 
envy.  If  I  could  take  you  and  Caesar, 
and  Napoleon  Bonaparte  and  Nero  over 
for  one  circus  season  we'd  drive  the  mint 
out  of  business." 

"  There's  your  chance,  William,"  said 
"Ward.  "  You  write  a  play  for  Bonaparte 
and  Caesar,  and  let  Nero  take  his  fiddle 
and  be  the  orchestra.  Under  Barnum's 
management  you'd  get  enough  activity  in 
one  season  to  last  you  through  all  eternity." 

"  You  can  count  on  me,"  said  Barnum, 
rising.  "  Let  me  know  when  you've  got 
your  plan  laid  out.  I'd  stay  and  make  a 
contract  with  you  now,  but  Adam  has 
promised  to  give  me  points  on  the  manage 
ment  of  wild  animals  without  cages,  BO  I 
can't  wait.  By-by." 

"  Humph  !"  said  Shakespeare,  as  the  emi 
nent  showman  passed  out.  "  That's  a  gay 
proposition.  When  monkeys  move  in  po- 


112  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STTX 

lite  society  William  Shakespeare  will  make 
a  side-show  of  himself  for  a  circus." 

"  They  do  now,"  said  Thackeray,  quiet- 

ly. 

Which  merely  proved  that  Shakespeare 
did  not  mean  what  he  said ;  for  in  spite  of 
Thackeray's  insinuation  as  to  the  monkeys 
and  polite  society,  he  has  not  yet  accepted 
the  Barnum  proposition,  though  there  can 
be  no  doubt  of  its  value  from  the  point  of 
view  of  a  circus  manager. 


IX 

AS   TO    COOKERY    AND    SCULPTURE 

ROBERT  BURNS  and  Homer  were  seated 
at  a  small  table  in  the  dining-room  of  the 
house-boat,  discussing  everything  in  gen 
eral  and  the  shade  of  a  very  excellent 
luncheon  in  particular. 

"  We  are  in  great  luck  to-day,"  said 
Burns,  as  he  cut  a  ruddy  duck  in  twain. 
"  This  bird  is  done  just  right." 

"  I  agree  with  you,"  returned  Homer, 
drawing  his  chair  a  trifle  closer  to  the  ta 
ble.  "  Compared  to  the  one  we  had  here 
last  Thursday,  this  is  a  feast  for  the  gods. 
I  wonder  who  it  was  that  cooked  this  fowl 
originally  ?" 

"  I  give  it  up ;  but  I  suspect  it  was  done 
by  some  man  who  knew  his  business,"  said 
Burns,  with  a  smack  of  his  lips.  "  It's  a 
pity,  I  think,  my  dear  Homer,  that  there  is 


114  A   HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

no  means  by  which  a  cook  may  become 
immortal.  Cooking  is  as  much  of  an  art 
as  is  the  writing  of  poetry,  and  just  as 
thei'e  are  immortal  poets  so  there  should 
be  immortal  cooks.  See  what  an  advantage 
the  poet  has — he  writes  something,  it  goes 
out  and  reaches  the  inmost  soul  of  the  man 
who  reads  it,  and  it  is  signed.  His  work  is 
known  because  he  puts  his  name  to  it  ;  but 
this  poor  devil  of  a  cook — where  is  he  ?  He 
has  done  his  work  as  well  as  the  poet  ever 
did  his,  it  has  reached  the  inmost  soul  of 
the  mortal  who  originally  ate  it,  but  he 
cannot  get  the  glory  of  it  because  he  can 
not  put  his  name  to  it.  If  the  cook  could 
sign  his  work  it  would  be  different." 

"  You  have  hit  upon  a  great  truth,"  said 
Homer,  nodding,  as  he  sometimes  was  wont 
to  do.  "  And  yet  I  fear  that,  ingenious  as 
we  are,  we  cannot  devise  a  plan  to  remedy 
the  matter.  I  do  not  know  about  you,  but 
I  should  myself  much  object  if  my  birds 
and  my  flapjacks,  and  other  things,  digesti 
ble  and  otherwise,  that  I  eat  here  were 
served  with  the  cook's  name  written  upon 


AS    TO    COOKERY    AND    SCULPTURE         115 

them.  An  omelette  is  sometimes  a  pict 
ure—" 

"  I've  seen  omelettes  that  looked  like  one 
of  Turner's  sunsets,"  acquiesced  Burns. 

"  Precisely  ;  and  when  Turner  puts  down 
in  one  corner  of  his  canvas,  '  Turner,  fecit,' 
you  do  not  object,  but  if  the  cook  did  that 
with  the  omelette  you  wouldn't  like  it." 

"No,"  said  Burns  ;  "  but  he  might  fasten 
a  tag  to  it,  with  his  name  written  upon 
that." 

"  That  is  so,"  said  Homer;  "  but  the  re 
sult  in  the  end  would  be  the  same.  The 
tags  would  get  lost,  or  perhaps  a  careless 
waiter,  dropping  a  tray  full  of  dainties, 
would  get  the  tags  of  a  good  and  bad  cook 
mixed  in  trying  to  restore  the  contents  of 
the  tray  to  their  previous  condition.  The 
tag  system  would  fail." 

"  There  is  but  one  other  way  that  I  can 
think  of,"  said  Burns,  "and  that  would 
do  no  good  now  unless  we  can  convey  our 
ideas  into  the  other  world  ;  that  is,  for  a 
great  poet  to  lend  his  genius  to  the  great 
cook,  and  make  the  latter's  name  immortal 


116  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

by  putting  it  into  a  poem.  Say,  for  in 
stance,  that  you  had  eaten  a  fine  bit  of  ter 
rapin,  done  to  the  most  exquisite  point — 
you  could  have  asked  the  cook's  name,  and 
written  an  apostrophe  to  her.  Something 
like  this,  for  instance : 

Oh,  Dinah  Rudd !   oh,  Dinah  Ruddl 

Thou  art  a  cook  of  bluest  blood! 

Nowhere  within 

This  world  of  sin 

Have  1  e'er  tasted  better  terrapin. 

Do  you  see  ?" 

"  I  do  ;  but  even  then,  my  dear  fellow, 
the  cook  would  fall  short  of  true  fame. 
Her  excellence  would  be  a  mere  matter  of 
hearsay  evidence,"  said  Homer. 

"  Not  if  you  went  on  to  describe,  in  a 
keenly  analytical  manner,  the  virtues  of 
that  particular  bit  of  terrapin,"  said  Burns. 
"  Draw  so  vivid  a  picture  of  the  dish  that 
the  reader  himself  would  taste  that  terra 
pin  even  as  you  tasted  it." 

"  You  have  hit  it !"  cried  Homer,  enthu- 


AS    TO    COOKERY    AND    SCULPTURE         117 

siastically.  "It  is  a  grand  plan;  but  how  to 
introduce  it — that  is  the  question." 

"  We  can  haunt  some  modern  poet,  and 
give  him  the  idea  in  that  way,"  suggested 
Burns.  "  He  will  see  the  novelty  of  it,  and 
will  possibly  disseminate  the  idea  as  we 
wish  it  to  be  disseminated." 

"  Done  !"  said  Homer.  "  I'll  begin  right 
away.  I  feel  like  haunting  to-night.  I'm 
getting  to  be  a  pretty  old  ghost,  but  I'll 
never  lose  my  love  of  haunting." 

At  this  point,  as  Homer  spoke,  a  fine- 
looking  spirit  entered  the  room,  and  took 
a  seat  at  the  head  of  the  long  table  at 
which  the  regular  club  dinner  was  nightly 
served. 

"  Why,  bless  me  !"  said  Homer,  his  face 
lighting  up  with  pleasure.  "  Why,  Phidias, 
is  that  you «" 

"  I  think  so,"  said  the  new-comer,  weari 
ly  ;  "  at  any  rate,  it's  all  that's  left  of 
me." 

"  Come  over  here  and  lunch  with  us," 
paid  Homer.  "You  know  Burns,  don't 
you?" 


118  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

"  Haven't  the  pleasure,"  said  Phidias. 

The  poet  and  the  sculptor  were  intro 
duced,  after  which  Phidias  seated  himself 
at  Homer's  side. 

"  Are  you  any  relation  to  Burns  the 
poet  ?"  the  former  asked,  addressing  the 
Scotchman. 

"  I  am  Burns  the  poet,"  replied  the 
other. 

"  You  don't  look  much  like  your  statues," 
said  Phidias,  scanning  his  face  critically. 

"No,  thank  the  Fates!"  said  Burns, 
warmly.  "  If  I  did,  I'd  commit  suicide." 

"Why  don't  you  sue  the  sculptors  for 
libel  ?"  asked  Phidias. 

"  You  speak  with  a  great  deal  of  feeling, 
Phidias,"  said  Homer,  gravely.  "  Have 
they  done  anything  to  hurt  you  ?" 

"  They  have,"  said  Phidias.  "  I  have 
just  returned  from  a  tour  of  the  world.  I 
have  seen  the  things  they  call  sculpture  in 
these  degenerate  days,  and  I  must  confess — 
who  shouldn't,  perhaps — that  I  could  have 
done  better  work  with  a  baseball-bat  for  a 
chisel  and  putty  for  the  raw  material" 


AS    TO    COOKERY    AND    SCULPTURE         119 

"  I  think  I  could  do  good  work  with  a 
baseball-bat  too,"  said  Burns  ;  "  but  as  for 
the  raw  material,  give  me  the  heads  of  the 
men  who  have  sculped  me  to  work  on.  I'd 
leave  them  so  that  they'd  look  like  some  of 
your  Parthenon  frieze  figures  with  the 
noses  gone." 

"You  are  a  vindictive  creature,"  said  Ho 
mer.  "  These  men  you  criticise,  and  whose 
heads  you  wish  to  sculp  with  a  baseball-bat, 
have  done  more  for  you  than  you  ever  did 
for  them.  Every  statue  of  you  these  men 
have  made  is  a  standing  advertisement  of 
your  books,  and  it  hasn't  cost  you  a  penny. 
There  isn't  a  doubt  in  my  mind  that  if  it 
were  not  for  those  statues  countless  people 
would  go  to  their  graves  supposing  that  the 
great  Scottish  Burns  were  little  rivulets, 
and  not  a  poet.  What  difference  does  it 
make  to  you  if  they  haven't  made  an  Adonis 
of  you  ?  You  never  set  them  an  example 
by  making  one  of  yourself.  If  there's  de 
ception  anywhere,  it  isn't  you  that  is  de 
ceived  ;  it  is  the  mortals.  And  who  cares 
about  them  or  their  opinions  ?" 


120  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

"I  never  thought  of  it  in  that  way," 
said  Burns.  "  I  hate  caricatures — that  is, 
caricatures  of  myself.  I  enjoy  caricatures 
of  other  people,  but — " 

"You  have  a  great  deal  of  the  mortal 
left  in  you,  considering  that  you  pose  as 
an  immortal,"  said  Homer,  interrupting  the 
speaker. 

"  Well,  so  have  I,"  said  Phidias,  resolved 
to  stand  by  Burns  in  the  argument,  "and 
I'm  sorry  for  the  man  who  hasn't.  I  was 
a  mortal  once,  and  I'm  glad  of  it.  I  had 
a  good  time,  and  I  don't  care  who  knows 
it.  When  I  look  about  me  and  see  Jupiter, 
the  arch -snob  of  creation,  and  Mars,  a  lit 
tle  tin  warrior  who  couldn't  have  fought  a 
soldier  like  Napoleon,  with  all  his  alleged 
divinity,  I  thank  the  Fates  that  they  ena 
bled  me  to  achieve  immortality  through 
mortal  effort.  Hang  hereditary  great 
ness,  I  say.  These  men  were  born  im 
mortals.  You  and  I  worked  for  it  and 
got  it.  We  know  what  it  cost.  It  was 
ours  because  we  earned  it,  and  not  be 
cause  we  were  born  to  it.  Eh,  Burns  ?" 


PHIDIAS   SEES   "A   LIFE  SIZE    STATUE    OF   THE   INVENTOR 
OF    A    NEW    KIND    OF   LARD " 


AS    TO    COOKERY   AND    SCULPTURE         121 

The  Scotchman  nodded  assent,  and  the 
Greek  sculptor  went  on. 

"  I  am  not  vindictive  myself,  Homer," 
he  said.  "  Nobody  has  hurt  me,  and,  on 
the  whole,  I  don't  think  sculpture  is  in 
such  a  bad  way,  after  all.  There's  a  shoe 
maker  I  wot  of  in  the  mortal  realms  who 
can  turn  the  prettiest  last  you  ever  saw; 
and  I  encountered  a  carver  in  a  London 
eating-house  last  month  who  turned  out  a 
slice  of  beef  that  was  cut  as  artistically 
as  I  could  have  done  it  myself.  What  I 
object  to  chiefly  is  the  tendency  of  the 
times.  This  is  an  electrical  age,  and  men 
in  my  old  profession  aren't  content  to  turn 
out  one  chef-d'oeuvre  in  a  lifetime.  They 
take  orders  by  the  gross.  I  waited  upon 
inspiration.  To-day  the  sculptor  waits 
upon  custom,  and  an  artist  will  make  a 
bust  of  anybody  in  any  material  desired 
as  long  as  he  is  sure  of  getting  his  pay  af 
terwards.  I  saw  a  life-size  statue  of  the 
inventor  of  a  new  kind  of  lard  the  other 
day,  and  what  do  you  suppose  the  mate 
rial  was?  Gold?  Not  by  a  great  deal. 


122  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

Ivory?  Marble,  even?  Not  a  bit  of  it. 
He  was  done  in  lard,  sir.  I  have  seen  a 
woman's  head  done  in  butter,  too,  and  it 
makes  me  distinctly  weary  to  think  that 
my  art  should  be  brought  so  low." 

"You  did  your  best  work  in  Greece," 
chuckled  Homer. 

"  A  bad  joke,  my  dear  Homer,"  retorted 
Phidias.  "I  thought  sculpture  was  get 
ting  down  to  a  pretty  low  ebb  when  I  had 
to  fashion  friezes  out  of  marble ;  but  mar 
ble  is  more  precious  than  rubies  alongside 
of  butter  and  lard." 

"  Each  has  its  uses,"  said  Homer.  "  I'd 
rather  have  butter  on  my  bread  than  mar 
ble,  but  I  must  confess  that  for  sculpture 
it  is  very  poor  stuff,  as  you  say." 

"  It  is  indeed,"  said  Phidias.  "  For  prac 
tice  it's  all  right  to  use  butter,  but  for  ex 
hibition  purposes — bah !" 

Here  Phidias,  to  show  his  contempt  for 
butter  as  raw  material  in  sculpture,  seized 
a  wooden  toothpick,  and  with  it  modelled 
a  beautiful  head  of  Minerva  out  of  the  pat 
that  stood  upon  the  small  plate  at  his  side, 


AS    TO    COOKERY    AND    SCULPTURE         123 

and  before  Burns  could  interfere  had 
spread  the  chaste  figure  as  thinly  as  he 
could  upon  a  piece  of  bread,  which  he 
tossed  to  the  shade  of  a  hungry  dog  that 
stood  yelping  on  the  river-bank. 

"  Heavens !"  cried  Burns.  "  Imperious 
Caesar  dead  and  turned  to  bricks  is  as  noth 
ing  to  a  Minerva  carved  by  Phidias  used 
to  stay  the  hunger  of  a  ravening  cur." 

"  Well,  it's  the  way  I  feel,"  said  Phid 
ias,  savagely. 

"  I  think  you  are  a  trifle  foolish  to  be  so 
eternally  vexed  about  it,"  said  Homer, 
soothingly.  "Of  course  you  feel  badly, 
but,  after  all,  what's  the  use  ?  You  must 
know  that  the  mortals  would  pay  more  for 
one  of  your  statues  than  they  would  for  a 
specimen  of  any  modern  sculptor's  art ; 
yes,  even  if  yours  were  modelled  in  wine- 
jelly  and  the  other  fellow's  in  pure  gold. 
So  why  repine  ?" 

"  You'd  feel  the  same  way  if  poets  did  a 
similarly  vulgar  thing,"  retorted  Phidias  ; 
"you  know  you  would.  If  you  should 
hear  of  a  poet  to-day  writing  a  poem  on 


124  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

a  thin  layer  of  lard  or  butter,  you  would 
yourself  be  the  first  to  call  a  halt." 

"No,  I  shouldn't,"  said  Homer,  quietly; 
"in  fact,  I  wish  the  poets  would  do  that. 
We'd  have  fewer  bad  poems  to  read ;  and 
that's  the  way  you  should  look  at  it.  I 
venture  to  say  that  if  this  modern  plan  of 
making  busts  and  friezes  in  butter  had 
been  adopted  at  an  earlier  period,  the  pub 
lic  places  in  our  great  cities  and  our  na 
tional  Walhallas  would  seem  less  like  re 
positories  of  comic  art,  since  the  first 
critical  rays  of  a  warm  sun  would  have 
reduced  the  carven  atrocities  therein  to  a 
spot  on  the  pavement.  The  butter  school 
of  sculpture  has  its  advantages,  my  boy, 
and  you  should  be  crowning  the  inventor 
of  the  system  with  laurel,  and  not  heap 
ing  coals  of  fire  upon  his  brow." 

"That,"  said  Burns,  "is,  after  all,  the 
solid  truth,  Phidias.  Take  the  brass  cari 
catures  of  me,  for  instance.  Where  would 
they  be  now  if  they  had  been  cast  in  lard 
instead  of  in  bronze  ?" 

Phidias  was  silent  a  moment. 


AS    TO    COOKERY    AND    SCULPTURE         125 

"  Well,"  he  said,  finally,  as  the  value  of 
the  plan  dawned  upon  his  mind,  "from 
that  point  of  view  I  don't  know  but  what 
you  are  right,  after  all ;  and,  to  show  that 
I  have  spoken  in  no  vindictive  spirit,  let 
me  propose  a  toast.  Here's  to  the  Butter 
Sculptors.  May  their  butter  never  give 
out." 

The  toast  was  drained  to  the  dregs,  and 
Phidias  went  home  feeling  a  little  better. 


X 

STORY-TELLEKS'    NIGHT 

IT  was  Story-tellers'  Night  at  the  house 
boat,  and  the  best  talkers  of  Hades  were 
impreseed  into  the  service.  Doctor  John 
son  was  made  chairman  of  the  evening. 

"Put  him  in  the  chair,"  said  Raleigh. 
"  That's  the  only  way  to  keep  him  from 
telling  a  story  himself.  If  he  starts  in  on 
a  tale  he'll  make  it  a  serial  sure  as  fate,  but 
if  you  make  him  the  medium  through 
which  other  story-tellers  are  introduced  to 
the  club  he'll  be  finely  epigrammatic.  He 
can  be  very  short  and  sharp  when  he's 
talking  about  somebody  else.  Personality 
is  his  forte." 

"  Great  scheme,"  said  Diogenes,  who  was 
chairman  of  the  entertainment  commit 
tee.  "  The  nights  over  here  are  long,  but 
if  Johnson  started  on  a  story  they'd  have 


STORY-TELLERS'  NIGHT  127 

to  reach  twice  around  eternity  and  half 
way  back  to  give  him  time  to  finish  all  he 
had  to  say." 

"  He's  not  very  witty,  in  my  judgment," 
said  Carlyle,  who  since  his  arrival  in  the 
other  world  has  manifested  some  jealousy 
of  Solomon  and  Doctor  Johnson. 

"  That's  true  enough,"  said  Raleigh  ; 
"but  he's  strong,  and  he's  bound  to  say 
something  that  will  put  the  audience  in 
sympathy  with  the  man  that  he  introduces, 
and  that's  half  the  success  of  a  Story-tell 
ers'  Night.  I've  told  stories  myself.  If 
your  audience  doesn't  sympathize  with  you 
you'd  be  better  off  at  home  putting  the 
baby  to  bed." 

And  so  it  happened.  Doctor  Johnson 
was  made  chairman,  and  the  evening  came. 
The  Doctor  was  in  great  form.  A  list  of 
the  story-tellers  had  been  sent  him  in  ad 
vance,  and  he  was  prepared.  The  audience 
was  about  as  select  a  one  as  can  be  found 
in  Hades.  The  doors  were  thrown  open  to 
the  friends  of  the  members,  and  the  smoke- 
furnace  had  been  filled  with  a  very  superior 


128  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

quality  of  Arcadian  mixture  which  Scott 
had  brought  back  from  a  haunting -trip 
to  the  home  of  "  The  Little  Minister,"  at 
Thrums. 

"  Friends  and  fellow-spooks,"  the  Doc 
tor  began,  when  all  were  seated  on  the 
visionary  camp-stools — which,  by  the  way, 
are  far  superior  to  those  in  use  in  a  world 
of  realities,  because  they  do  not  creak  in 
the  midst  of  a  fine  point  demanding  ab 
solute  silence  for  appreciation — "  I  do  not 
know  why  I  have  been  chosen  to  preside 
over  this  gathering  of  phantoms  ;  it  is  the 
province  of  the  presiding  officer  on  occa 
sions  of  this  sort  to  say  pleasant  things, 
which  he  does  not  necessarily  endorse, 
about  the  sundry  persons  who  are  to  do  the 
story- telling.  Now,  I  suppose  you  all 
know  me  pretty  well  by  this  time.  If  there 
is  anybody  who  doesn't,  I'll  be  glad  to  have 
him  presented  after  the  formal  work  of  the 
evening  is  over,  and  if  I  don't  like  him  I'll 
tell  him  so.  You  know  that  if  I  can  be 
counted  upon  for  any  one  thing  it  is  candor, 
and  if  I  hurt  the  feelings  of  any  of  these 


STORY-TELLERS'  NIGHT  129 

individuals  whom  I  introduce  to-night,  I 
want  them  distinctly  to  understand  that  it 
is  not  because  I  love  them  less,  but  that  I 
love  truth  more.  With  this — ah — blanket 
apology,  as  it  were,  to  cover  all  possible 
emergencies  that  may  arise  during  the 
evening,  I  will  begin.  The  first  speaker  on 
the  programme,  I  regret  to  observe,  is  my 
friend  Goldsmith.  Affairs  of  this  kind 
ought  to  begin  with  a  snap,  and  while  Oli 
ver  is  a  most  excellent  writer,  as  a  speaker 
he  is  a  pebbleless  Demosthenes.  If  I  had 
had  the  arrangement  of  the  programme  I 
should  have  had  Goldsmith  tell  his  story 
while  the  rest  of  us  were  down  -  stairs 
at  supper.  However,  we  must  abide  by 
our  programme,  which  is  unconscionably 
long,  for  otherwise  we  will  never  get 
through  it.  Those  of  you  who  agree  with 
me  as  to  the  pleasure  of  listening  to  my 
friend  Goldsmith  will  do  well  to  join  me 
in  the  grill-room  while  he  is  speaking, 
where,  I  understand,  there  is  a  very  fine  line 
of  punches  ready  to  be  served.  Modest 
Noll,  will  you  kindly  inflict  yourself  upon 


130  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

the  gathering,  and  send  me  word  when  yot\ 
get  through,  if  you  ever  do,  so  that  I  may 
return  and  present  number  two  to  the 
assembly,  whoever  or  whatever  he  may 
be?" 

With  these  words  the  Doctor  retired, 
and  poor  Goldsmith,  pale  with  fear,  rose 
up  to  speak.  It  was  evident  that  he  was 
quite  as  doubtful  of  his  ability  as  a  talker 
as  was  Johnson. 

"  I'm  not  much  of  a  talker,  or,  as  some 
say,  speaker,"  he  said.  "  Talking  is  not  my 
forte,  as  Doctor  Johnson  has  told  you,  and 
I  am  therefore  not  much  at  it.  Speaking 
is  not  in  my  line.  I  cannot  speak  or  talk, 
as  it  were,  because  I  am  not  particularly 
ready  at  the  making  of  a  speech,  due  partly 
to  the  fact  that  I  am  not  much  of  a  talker 
anyhow,  and  seldom  if  ever  speak.  I  will 
therefore  not  bore  you  by  attempting  to 
speak,  since  a  speech  by  one  who  like  my 
self  is,  as  you  are  possibly  aware,  not  a 
fluent  nor  indeed  in  any  sense  an  eloquent 
speaker,  is  apt  to  be  a  bore  to  those  who 
will  be  kind  enough  to  listen  to  my  remarks, 


"  GOLDSMITH,  PALE   WITH   FEAR,   RISES   TO   SPEAK  " 


STORY-TELLERS     NIGHT  131 

but  will  read  instead  the  first  five  chapters 
of  the  Vicar  of  Wakefield." 

"Who  suggested  any  such  night  as  this, 
anyhow?"  growled  Carlyle.  "  Five  chap 
ters  of  the  Vicar  of  Wakefidd  for  a  start 
er  !  Lord  save  us,  we'll  need  a  Vicar  of 
Sleepfield  if  he's  allowed  to  do  this !" 

"I  move  we  adjourn,"  said  Darwin. 

"  Can't  something  be  done  to  keep  these 
younger  members  quiet  ?"  asked  Solomon, 
frowning  upon  Carlyle  and  Darwin. 

"  Yes,"  said  Douglas  Jerrold.  "  Let  Gold 
smith  go  on.  He'll  have  them  asleep  in  ten 
minutes." 

Meanwhile,  Goldsmith  was  plodding  ear 
nestly  through  his  stint,  utterly  and  happily 
oblivious  of  the  effect  he  was  having  upon 
his  audience. 

"  This  is  awful,"  whispered  Wellington 
to  Bonaparte. 

"  Worse  than  Waterloo,"  replied  the  ex- 
Emperor,  with  a  grin ;  "  but  we  can  stop 
it  in  a  minute.  Artemas  Ward  told  me 
once  how  a  camp-meeting  he  attended  in 
the  West  broke  up  to  go  outside  and  see 


132  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

a  dog-fight.  Can't  you  and  I  pretend  to 
quarrel  ?  A  personal  assault  by  you  on  me 
will  wake  these  people  up  and  discombob- 
ulate  Goldsmith.  Say  the  word — only  don't 
hit  too  hard." 

"  I'm  with  you,"  said  Wellington.  Where 
upon,  with  a  great  show  of  heat,  he  roared 
out,  "  You  ?  Never  !  I'm  more  afraid  of 
a  boy  with  a  bean-snapper  that  I  ever  was 
of  you!"  and  followed  up  his  remark  by 
pulling  Bonaparte's  camp-chair  from  un 
der  him,  and  letting  the  conqueror  of  Aus- 
terlitz  fall  to  the  floor  with  a  thud  which 
I  have  since  heard  described  as  dull  and 
sickening. 

The  effect  was  instantaneous.  Compared 
to  a  personal  encounter  between  the  two 
great  figures  of  Waterloo,  a  reading  from 
his  own  works  by  Goldsmith  seemed  lack 
ing  in  the  elements  essential  to  the  holding 
of  an  audience.  Consequently,  attention 
was  centred  in  the  belligerent  warriors, 
and,  by  some  odd  mistake,  when  a  peace- 
loving  member  of  the  assemblage,  realizing 
the  indecorousness  of  the  incident,  cried 


STORY-TELLERS'  NIGHT  133 

out,  "  Put  him  out !  put  him  out !"  the  at 
tendants  rushed  in,  and,  taking  poor  Gold 
smith  by  his  collar,  hustled  him  out  through 
the  door,  across  the  deck,  and  tossed  him 
ashore  without  reference  to  the  gang-plank. 
This  accomplished,  a  personal  explanation 
of  their  course  was  made  by  the  quarrelling 
generals,  and,  peace  having  been  restored, 
a  committee  was  sent  in  search  of  Gold 
smith  with  suitable  apologies.  The  good 
and  kindly  soul  returned,  but  having  lost 
his  book  in  the  melee,  much  to  his  own 
gratification,  as  well  as  to  that  of  the  audi 
ence,  he  was  permitted  to  rest  in  quiet  the 
balance  of  the  evening. 

"  Is  he  through  ?"  said  Johnson,  poking 
his  head  in  at  the  door  when  order  was  re 
stored. 

"  Yes,  sir,"  said  Boswell ;  "  that  is  to  say, 
he  has  retired  permanently  from  the  field. 
He  didn't  finish,  though." 

"Fellow-spooks,"  began  Johnson  once 
more,  "  now  that  you  have  been  delighted 
with  the  honeyed  eloquence  of  the  last 
speaker,  it  is  my  privilege  to  present  to  you 


134  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

that  eminent  fabulist  Baron  Munchausen, 
the  greatest  unrealist  of  all  time,  who  will 
give  you  an  exhibition  of  his  paradoxical 
power  of  lying  while  standing." 

The  applause  which  greeted  the  Baron 
was  deafening.  He  was,  beyond  all  doubt, 
one  of  the  most  popular  members  of  the 
club. 

"  Speaking  of  whales,"  said  he,  leaning 
gracefully  against  the  table. 

"Nobody  has  mentioned  'em,"  said  John 
son. 

"  True,"  retorted  the  Baron  ;  "  but  you 
always  suggest  them  by  your  apparently 
unquenchable  thirst  for  spouting  —  speak 
ing  of  whales,  my  friend  Jonah,  as  well  as 
the  rest  of  you,  may  be  interested  to  know 
that  I  once  had  an  experience  similar  to 
his  own,  and,  strange  to  say,  with  the  iden 
tical  whale." 

Jonah  arose  from  his  seat  in  the  back  of 
the  room.  "  I  do  not  wish  to  be  unpleas 
ant,"  he  said,  with  a  strong  effort  to  be 
calm,  "  but  I  wish  to  ask  if  Judge  Black- 
stone  is  in  the  room." 


"WELLINGTON  PCLLS  BONAPARTE'S  CAMP-CHAIR  FROM  UNDER 
HIM 


STORY-TELLERS    NIGHT  135 

"  I  am,"  said  the  Judge,  rising.  "  What 
can  I  do  for  you  ?" 

"I  desire  to  apply  for  an  injunction  re 
straining  the  Baron  from  using  my  whale 
in  his  story.  That  whale,  your  honor,  is 
copyrighted,"  said  Jonah.  "  If  I  had  any 
other  claim  to  the  affection  of  mankind 
than  the  one  which  is  based  on  my  experi 
ence  with  that  leviathan,  I  would  willingly 
permit  the  Baron  to  introduce  him  into 
his  story;  but  that  whale,  your  honor,  is 
my  stock  in  trade — he  is  my  all." 

"  I  think  Jonah's  point  is  well  taken," 
said  Blackstone,  turning  to  the  Baron. 
"  It  would  be  a  distinct  hardship,  I  think, 
If  the  plaintiff  in  this  action  were  to  be 
deprived  of  the  exclusive  use  of  his  sole 
accessory.  The  injunction  prayed  for  is 
therefore  granted.  The  court  would  sug 
gest,  however,  that  the  Baron  continue 
with  his  story,  using  another  whale  for 
the  purpose." 

"It  is  impossible,"  said  Munchausen, 
gloomily.  "  The  whole  point  of  the  story 
depends  upon  its  having  been  Jonah's 


136  A    flO  USE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

whale.  Under  the  circumstances,  the  only 
thing  I  can  do  is  to  sit  down.  I  regret 
the  narrowness  of  mind  exhibited  by  my 
friend  Jonah,  but  I  must  respect  the  de 
cision  of  the  court." 

"I  must  take  exception  to  the  Baron's 
allusion  to  my  narrowness  of  mind,"  said 
Jonah,  with  some  show  of  heat.  "I  am 
simply  defending  my  rights,  and  I  intend 
to  continue  to  do  so  if  the  whole  world 
unites  in  considering  my  mind  a  mere 
slot  scarcely  wide  enough  for  the  inser 
tion  of  a  nickel.  That  whale  was  my  dis 
covery,  and  the  personal  discomfort  I  en 
dured  in  perfecting  my  experience  was 
such  that  I  resolved  to  rest  my  reputation 
upon  his  broad  proportions  only — to  sink 
or  swim  with  him — and  I  cannot  at  this 
late  day  permit  another  to  crowd  me  out 
of  his  exclusive  use." 

Jonah  sat  down  and  fanned  himself, 
and  the  Baron,  with  a  look  of  disgust  on 
his  face,  left  the  room. 

"Up  to  his  old  tricks,"  he  growled  as 
he  went.  "  He  queers  everything  he  goes 


STORY-TELLERS'  NIGHT  ist 

into.  If  I'd  known  he  was  a  member  of 
this  club  I'd  never  have  joined." 

"We  do  not  appear  to  be  progressing 
very  rapidly,"  said  Doctor  Johnson,  rising. 
"  So  far  we  have  made  two  efforts  to  have 
stories  told,  and  have  met  with  disaster 
each  time.  I  don't  know  but  what  you 
are  to  be  congratulated,  however,  on  your 
escape.  Very  few  of  you,  I  observe,  have 
as  yet  fallen  asleep.  The  next  number  on 
the  programme,  I  see,  is  Boswell,  who  was 
to  have  entertained  you  with  a  few  remi 
niscences  ;  I  say  was  to  have  done  so,  be 
cause  he  is  not  to  do  so." 

"  I'm  ready,"  said  Boswell,  rising. 

"No  doubt,"  retorted  Johnson,  severe 
ly,  "  but  I  am  not.  You  are  a  man  with 
one  subject — myself.  I  admit  it's  a  good 
subject,  but  you  are  not  the  man  to  treat 
of  it — here.  You  may  suffice  for  mortals, 
but  here  it  is  different.  I  can  speak  for 
myself.  You  can  go  out  and  sit  on  the 
banks  of  the  Vitriol  Reservoir  and  lecture 
to  the  imps  if  you  want  to,  but  when  it 
comes  to  reminiscences  of  me  I'm  on  deck 


138  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

myself,  and  I  flatter  myself  I  remember 
what  I  said  and  did  more  accurately  than 
you  do.  Therefore,  gentlemen,  instead  of 
listening  to  Boswell  at  this  point,  you  will 
kindly  excuse  him  and  listen  to  me. 
Ahem  !  When  I  was  a  boy — " 

"  Excuse  me,"  said  Solomon,  rising ; 
"about  how  long  is  this — ah — this  enter 
taining  discourse  of  yours  to  continue?" 

"  Until  I  get  through,"  returned  John 
son,  wrathfully. 

"Are  you  aware,  sir,  that  I  am  on  the 
programme  ?"  asked  Solomon. 

"  I  am,"  said  the  Doctor.  "  With  that 
in  mind,  for  the  sake  of  our  fellow-spooks 
who  are  present,  I  am  very  much  inclined 
to  keep  on  forever.  When  I  was  a 
boy-" 

Carlyle  rose  up  at  this  point. 

"  I  should  like  to  ask,"  he  said,  mildly, 
"  if  this  is  supposed  to  be  an  audience  of 
children  ?  I,  for  one,  have  no  wish  to  lis 
ten  to  the  juvenile  stories  of  Doctor  John 
son.  Furthermore,  I  have  come  here  par 
ticularly  to-night  to  hear  Boswell.  I  want 


STORY-TELLERS     NIGHT  139 

to  compare  him  with  Froude.  I  therefore 
protest  against — " 

"  There  is  a  roof  to  this  house-boat,"  said 
Doctor  Johnson.  "  If  Mr.  Carlyle  will  re 
tire  to  the  roof  with  Boswell  I  have  no 
doubt  he  can  be  accommodated.  As  for 
Solomon's  interruption,  I  can  afford  to 
pass  that  over  with  the  silent  contempt  it 
deserves,  though  I  may  add  with  proprie 
ty  that  I  consider  his  most  famous  prov 
erbs  the  most  absurd  bits  of  hack-work  I 
ever  encountered  ;  and  as  for  that  story 
about  dividing  a  baby  between  two  moth 
ers  by  splitting  it  in  two,  it  was  grossly 
inhuman  unless  the  baby  was  twins.  When 
I  was  a  boy — " 

As  the  Doctor  proceeded,  Carlyle  and 
Solomon,  accompanied  by  the  now  angry 
Boswell,  left  the  room,  and  my  account  of 
the  Story  -  tellers'  Night  must  perforce 
stop  ;  because,  though  I  have  never  here 
tofore  confessed  it,  all  my  information 
concerning  the  house -boat  on  the  Styx 
has  been  derived  from  the  memoranda  of 
Boswell.  It  may  be  interesting  to  the  read- 


140  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

er  to  learn,  however,  that,  according  to  Bos- 
well's  account,  the  Story-tellers'  Night  was 
never  finished  ;  but  whether  this  means 
that  it  broke  up  immediately  afterwards 
in  a  riot,  or  that  Doctor  Johnson  is  still  at 
work  detailing  his  reminiscences,  I  am  not 
aware,  and  I  cannot  at  the  moment  of 
writing  ascertain,  for  Boswell,  when  I  have 
the  pleasure  of  meeting  him,  invariably 
avoids  the  subject. 


XI 

AS   TO   SAURIANS   AND   OTHBES 

IT  was  Noah  who  spoke. 

"  I'm  glad,"  he  said,  "  that  when  I  em 
barked  at  the  time  of  the  heavy  rains  that 
did  so  much  damage  in  the  old  days,  there 
weren't  any  dogs  like  that  fellow  Cerberus 
about.  If  I'd  had  to  feed  a  lot  of  three- 
headed  beasts  like  him  the  Ark  would 
have  run  short  of  provisions  inside  of  ten 
days." 

"  That's  very  likely  true,"  observed  Mr. 
Barnum;  "but  I  must  confess,  my  dear 
Noah,  that  you  showed  a  lamentable  lack 
of  the  showman's  instinct  when  you  se 
lected  the  animals  you  did.  A  more  com 
monplace  lot  of  beasts  were  never  gathered 
together,  and  while  Adam  is  held  respon 
sible  for  the  introduction  of  sin  into  the 


142  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

world,  I  attribute  most  of  my  offences  to 
none  other  than  yourself." 

The  members  of  the  club  drew  their 
chairs  a  little  closer.  The  conversation 
had  opened  a  trifle  spicily,  and,  further 
more,  they  had  retained  enough  of  their 
mortality  to  be  interested  in  animal  stories. 
Adam,  who  had  managed  to  settle  his 
back  dues  and  delinquent  house-charges, 
and  once  more  acquired  the  privileges  of 
the  club,  nodded  his  head  gratefully  at 
Mr.  Barnum. 

"I'm  glad  to  find  some  one,"  said  he, 
"  who  places  the  responsibility  for  trouble 
where  it  belongs.  I'm  round-shouldered 
with  the  blame  I've  had  to  bear.  I  didn't 
invent  sin  any  more  than  I  invented  the 
telephone,  and  I  think  it's  rather  rough  on 
a  fellow  who  lived  a  quiet,  retiring,  pas 
toral  life,  minding  his  own  business  and 
staying  home  nights,  to  be  held  up  to 
public  reprobation  for  as  long  a  time  as  I 
have." 

"  It  '11  be  all  right  in  time,"  said  Raleigh ; 
"just  wait — be  patient,  and  your  vindica- 


AS    TO    SAURIANS    AND    OTHERS  143 

tion  will  come.  Nobody  thought  much  of 
the  plays  Bacon  and  I  wrote  for  Shake 
speare  until  Shakespeare  'd  been  dead  a 
century." 

"  Humph!"  said  Adam,  gloomily.  "Wait! 
What  have  I  been  doing  all  this  time  ? 
I've  waited  all  the  time  there's  been  so  far, 
and  until  Mr.  Barnum  spoke  as  he  did  I 
haven't  observed  the  slightest  inclination 
on  the  part  of  anybody  to  rehabilitate  my 
lost  reputation.  Nor  do  I  see  exactly  how 
it's  to  come  about  even  if  I  do  wait." 

"  You  might  apply  for  an  investigating 
committee  to  look  into  the  charges,"  sug 
gested  an  American  politician,  just  over. 
"  Get  your  friends  on  it,  and  you'll  be  all 
right." 

"Better  let  sleeping  dogs  lie,"  said 
Blackstone. 

"I  intend  to,"  said  Adam.  "The  fact 
is,  I  hate  to  give  any  further  publicity  to 
the  matter.  Even  if  I  did  bring  the  case 
into  court  and  sue  for  libel,  I've  only  got 
one  witness  to  prove  my  innocence,  and 
that's  my  wife.  I'm  not  going  to  drag  her 


144  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

into  it.  She's  got  nervous  prostration  over 
her  position  as  it  is,  and  this  would  make 
it  worse.  Queen  Elizabeth  and  the  rest  of 
these  snobs  in  society  won't  invite  her  to 
any  of  their  functions  because  they  say 
she  hadn't  any  grandfather;  and  even  if 
she  were  received  by  them,  she'd  be  un 
comfortable  going  about.  It  isn't  pleasant 
for  a  woman  to  feel  that  every  one  knows 
she's  the  oldest  woman  in  the  room." 

"  Well,  take  my  word  for  it,"  said  Ra 
leigh,  kindly.  "  It  '11  all  come  out  all  right. 
You  know  the  old  saying,  '  History  repeats 
itself.'  Some  day  you  will  be  living  back 
in  Eden  again,  and  if  you  are  only  careful 
to  make  an  exact  record  of  all  you  do,  and 
have  a  notary  present,  before  whom  you 
can  make  an  affidavit  as  to  the  facts,  you 
will  be  able  to  demonstrate  your  inno 
cence." 

"  I  was  only  condemned  on  hearsay  ev 
idence,  anyhow,"  said  Adam,  ruefully. 

"Nonsense;  you  were  caught  red-hand 
ed,"  said  Noah;  "my  grandfather  told 
me  so.  And  now  that  I've  got  a  chance  to 


AS    TO    SAURIANS    AND    OTHERS  145 

slip  in  a  word  edgewise,  I'd  like  mightily 
to  have  you  explain  your  statement,  Mr. 
Barnum,  that  I  am  responsible  for  your 
errors.  That  is  a  serious  charge  to  bring 
against  a  man  of  my  reputation." 

"I  mean  simply  this:  that  to  make  a 
show  interesting,"  said  Mr.  Barnum,  "a 
man  has  got  to  provide  interesting  ma 
terials,  that's  all.  I  do  not  mean  to  say  a 
word  that  is  in  any  way  derogatory  to  your 
morality.  You  were  a  surprisingly  good 
man  for  a  sea-captain,  and  with  the  excep 
tion  of  that  one  occasion  when  you — ah — 
you  allowed  yourself  to  be  stranded  on  the 
bar,  if  I  may  so  put  it,  I  know  of  nothing 
to  be  said  against  you  as  a  moral,  temper 
ate  person." 

"  That  was  only  an  accident,"  said  Noah, 
reddening.  "  Yon  can't  expect  a  man  of 
six  hundred  odd  years  of  age — " 

"Certainly  not,"  said  Raleigh,  sooth 
ingly,  "  and  nobody  thinks  less  of  you  for 
it.  Considering  how  you  must  have  hated 
the  sight  of  water,  the  wonder  of  it  is  that 
it  didn't  become  a  fixed  habit.  Let  us 


146  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

hear  what  it  is  that  Mr.  Barnum  does  crit 
icise  in  you." 

"His  taste,  that's  all,"  said  Mr.  Bar 
num.  "I  contend  that,  compared  to  the 
animals  he  might  have  had,  the  ones  he 
did  have  were  as  ant-hills  to  Alps.  There 
were  more  magnificent  zoos  allowed  to  die 
out  through  Noah's  lack  of  judgment  than 
one  likes  to  think  of.  Take  the  Protero- 
saurus,  for  instance.  Where  on  earth  do 
we  find  his  equal  to-day  ?" 

"You  ought  to  be  mighty  glad  you 
can't  find  one  like  him,"  put  in  Adam.  "  If 
you'd  spent  a  week  in  the  Garden  of  Eden 
with  me,  with  lizards  eight  feet  long 
dropping  out  of  the  trees  on  to  your  lap 
while  you  were  trying  to  take  a  Sunday- 
afternoon  nap,  you'd  be  willing  to  dis 
pense  with  things  of  that  sort  for  the  bal 
ance  of  your  natural  life.  If  you  want  to 
get  an  idea  of  that  experience  let  some 
body  drop  a  calf  on  you  some  afternoon." 

"  I  am  not  saying  anything  about  that," 
returned  Barnum.  "  It  would  be  unpleas 
ant  to  have  an  elephant  drop  on  one  aftef 


AS    TO    SAURIANS    AND    OTHERS  147" 

the  fashion  of  which  you  speak,  but  I  am 
glad  the  elephant  was  saved  just  the  same. 
I  haven't  advocated  the  Proterosaurus  as 
a  Sunday -afternoon  surprise,  but  as  an 
attraction  for  a  show.  I  still  maintain 
that  a  lizard  as  big  as  a  cow  would  prove 
a  lodestone,  the  drawing  powers  of  which 
the  pocket-money  of  the  small  boy  would 
be  utterly  unable  to  resist.  Then  there 
was  the  Iguanadon.  He'd  have  brought  a 
fortune  to  the  box-office — " 

"  Which  you'd  have  immediately  lost,'* 
retorted  Noah,  "  paying  rent.  When  you 
get  a  reptile  of  his  size,  that  reaches  thirty 
feet  up  into  the  air  when  he  stands  on  his. 
hind -legs,  the  ordinary  circus  wagon  of 
commerce  can't  be  made  to  hold  him,  and 
your  menagerie-room  has  to  have  ceilings 
so  high  that  every  penny  he  brought  to 
the  box-office  would  be  spent  storing  him.'* 

"  Mischievous,  too,"  said  Adam,  "  that 
Iguanadon.  You  couldn't  keep  anything 
out  of  his  reach.  We  used  to  forbid  an 
imals  of  his  kind  to  enter  the  garden,  but 
that  didn't  bother  him  ;  he'd  stand  up  on 


148  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

his  hind-legs  and  reach  over  and  steal  any 
thing  he'd  happen  to  want." 

"  I  could  have  used  him  for  a  fire-es 
cape,"  said  Mr.  Barnum;  "and  as  for  my 
inability  to  provide  him  with  quarters,  I'd 
have  met  that  problem  after  a  short  while. 
I've  always  lamented  the  absence,  too,  of 
the  Megalosaurus — " 

"  Which  simply  shows  how  ignorant  you 
are,"  retorted  Noah.  "  Why,  my  dear  fel 
low,  it  would  have  taken  the  whole  of  an 
ordinary  zoo  such  as  yours  to  give  the 
Megalosaurus  a  lunch.  Those  fellows 
would  eat  a  rhinoceros  as  easily  as  you'd 
crack  a  peanut.  I  did  have  a  couple  of 
Megalosaurians  on  my  boat  for  just  twenty- 
four  hours,  and  then  I  chucked  them  both 
overboard.  If  Fd  kept  them  ten  daya 
longer  they'd  have  eaten  every  blessed 
beast  I  had  with  me,  and  your  Zoo  wouldn't 
have  had  anything  else  but  Megalosau> 
rians." 

"  Papa  is  right  about  that,  Mr.  Barnum," 
said  Shem.  "  The  whole  Saurian  tribe  was 
a  fearful  nuisance.  About  four  hundred 


PAPA   IS  RIGHT  ABOUT  THAT,   MR.    BARNTJM,'   SAID   SHEM  " 


AS    TO    SAURIANS    AND    OTHERS  149 

years  before  the  flood  I  had  a  pet  Creo- 
saurus  that  I  kept  in  our  barn.  He  was  a 
cunning  little  devil — full  of  tricks,  and  all 
that;  but  we  never  could  keep  a  cow  or  a 
horse  on  the  place  while  he  was  about. 
They'd  mysteriously  disappear,  and  we 
never  knew  what  became  of  'em  until  one 
morning  we  surprised  Fido  in —  " 

"Surprised  who?"  asked  Doctor  John 
son,  scornfully. 

"  Fido,"  returned  Shem.  "  That  was  my 
Creosaurus's  name." 

"  Lord  save  us  !  Fido  !"  cried  Johnson. 
"  What  a  name  for  a  Creosaurus  !" 

"Well,  what  of  it?"  asked  Shera,  an 
grily.  "You  wouldn't  have  us  call  a 
mastodon  like  that  Fanny,  would  you,  or 
Tatters?" 

"  Go  on,"  said  Johnson  ;  "  I've  nothing 
to  say." 

"  Shall  I  send  for  a  physician  ?"  put  in 
Boswell,  looking  anxiously  at  his  chief,  the 
situation  was  so  extraordinary. 

Solomon  and  Carlyle  giggled  ;  and  the 
Doctor  having  politely  requested  Boswell 


150  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

to  go  to  a  warmer  section  of  the  country, 
Shem  resumed. 

"  I  caught  him  in  the  act  of  swallowing 
five  cows  and  Ham's  favorite  trotter,  sulky 
and  all." 

Baron  Munchausen  rose  up  and  left  the 
room. 

"  If  they're  going  to  lie  I'm  going  to  get 
out,"  he  said,  as  he  passed  through  the 
room. 

"What  became  of  Fido?"  asked  Bos- 
well. 

"The  sulky  killed  him,"  returned  Shem, 
innocently.  "  He  couldn't  digest  the 
wheels." 

Noah  looked  approvingly  at  his  son,  and, 
turning  to  Barnum,  observed,  quietly : 

"What  he  says  is  true,  and  I  will  go 
further  and  say  that  it  is  my  belief  that 
you  would  have  found  the  show  business 
impossible  if  I  had  taken  that  sort  of 
creature  aboard.  You'd  have  got  mighti 
ly  discouraged  after  your  antediluvians 
had  chewed  up  a  few  dozen  steam  calli 
opes,  and  eaten  every  other  able-bodied  ex- 


AS    TO    SAURIANS    AND    OTHERS  151 

hibit  you  had  managed  to  secure.  I'd  have 
tried  to  save  a  couple  of  Discosaurians  if 
I  hadn't  supposed  they  were  able  to  take 
care  of  themselves.  A  combination  of  sea- 
serpent  and  dragon,  with  a  neck  twenty- 
two  feet  long,  it  seemed  to  me,  ought  to 
have  been  able  to  ride  out  any  storm  or 
fall  of  rain;  but  there  I  was  wrong,  and  I 
am  free  to  admit  my  error.  It  never  oc 
curred  to  me  that  the  sea-serpents  were 
in  any  danger,  so  I  let  them  alone,  with 
the  result  that  I  never  saw  but  one  other, 
and  he  was  only  an  illusion  due  to  that 
unhappy  use  of  stimulants  to  which,  with 
shocking  bad  taste,  you  have  chosen  to 
refer." 

"I  didn't  mean  to  call  up  unpleasant 
memories,"  said  Barnurn.  "  I  never  be 
lieved  you  got  half-seas  over,  anyhow;  but, 
to  return  to  our  muttons,  why  didn't  you 
hand  down  a  few  varieties  of  the  Therium 
family  to  posterity?  There  were  the  Dino- 
therium  and  the  Megatherium,  either  one 
of  which  would  have  knocked  spots  out  of 
any  leopard  that  ever  was  made,  and  along- 


162  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

side  of  which  even  my  woolly  horse  would 
have  paled  into  insignificance.  That's  what 
I  can't  understand  in  your  selections  ;  with 
Megatheriums  to  burn,  why  save  leopards 
and  panthers  and  other  such  every-day 
creatures  ?" 

"  What  kind  of  a  boat  do  you  suppose  I 
had  ?"  cried  Noah.  "  Do  you  imagine  for 
a  moment  that  she  was  four  miles  on  the 
water-line,  with  a  mile  and  three-quarters 
beam  ?  If  I'd  had  a  pair  of  Dinotheriums 
in  the  stern  of  that  Ark,  she'd  have  tipped 
up  fore  and  aft,  until  she'd  have  looked  like 
a  telegraph-pole  in  the  water,  and  if  I'd  put 
'em  amidships  they'd  have  had  to  be  wedged 
in  so  tightly  they  couldn't  move  to  keep 
the  vessel  trim.  I  didn't  go  to  sea,  my 
friend,  for  the  purpose  of  being  tipped  over 
in  mid-ocean  every  time  one  of  my  cargo 
wanted  to  shift  his  weight  from  one  leg  to 
the  other." 

"It  was  bad  enough  with  the  elephants, 
wasn't  it,  papa  ?"  said  Shem. 

"Yes,  indeed,  my  son,"  returned  the 
patriarch.  "It  was  bad  enough  with  the 


AS    TO    SAURIANS    AND    OTHERS  153 

elephants.  We  had  to  shift  our  ballast 
half  a  dozen  times  a  day  to  keep  the  boat 
from  travelling  on  her  beam  ends,  the  ele 
phants  moved  about  so  much  ;  and  when 
we  came  to  the  question  of  provender,  it 
took  up  about  nine-tenths  of  our  hold  to 
store  hay  and  peanuts  enough  to  keep  them 
alive  and  good-tempered.  On  the  whole, 
I  think  it's  rather  late  in  the  day,  consider 
ing  the  trouble  I  took  to  save  anything 
but  myself  and  my  family,  to  be  criticised 
as  I  now  am.  You  ought  to  be  much 
obliged  to  me  for  saving  any  animals  at  all. 
Most  people  in  my  position  would  have 
built  a  yacht  for  themselves  and  family, 
and  let  everything  else  slide." 

"  That  is  quite  true,"  observed  Raleigh, 
with  a  pacificatory  nod  at  Noah.  "You 
were  eminently  unselfish,  and  while,  with 
Mr.  Barnum,  I  exceedingly  regret  that  the 
Saurians  and  Therii  and  other  tribes  were 
left  on  the  pier  when  you  sailed,  I  never 
theless  think  that  you  showed  most  excel 
lent  judgment  at  the  time." 

"  He  was  the  only  man  who  had  any  at 


164  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

all,  for  that  matter,"  suggested  Shern,  "and 
it  required  all  his  courage  to  show  it. 
Everybody  was  guying  him.  Sinners  stood 
around  the  yard  all  day  and  every  day, 
criticising  the  model ;  one  scoffer  pretended 
he  thought  her  a  canal-boat,  and  asked 
how  deep  the  flood  was  likely  to  be  on  the 
tow-path,  and  whether  we  intended  to  use 
mules  in  shallow  water  and  giraffes  in 
deep ;  another  asked  what  time  allowance 
we  expected  to  get  in  a  fifteen-mile  run, 
and  hinted  that  a  year  and  two  months 
per  mile  struck  him  as  being  the  proper 
thing — " 

"It  was  far  from  pleasant,"  said  Noah, 
tapping  his  fingers  together  reflectively. 
"  I  don't  want  to  go  through  it  again,  and 
if,  as  Raleigh  suggests,  history  is  likely  to 
repeat  herself,  I'll  sublet  the  contract  to 
Barnum  here,  and  let  him  get  the  chaff." 

"It  was  all  right  in  the  end,  though, 
dad,"  said  Shem.  "We  had  the  great 
laugh  on  *  hoi  polloi '  the  second  day  out." 

"  We  did,  indeed,"  said  Noah.  "  When 
we  told  'em  we  only  carried  first-class  pas- 


AS    TO    SAURIANS    AND    OTHERS  155 

sengers  and  had  no  room  for  emigrants, 
they  began  to  see  that  the  Ark  wasn't  such 
an  old  tub,  after  all;  and  a  good  ninety  per 
cent,  of  them  would  have  given  ten  dollars 
for  a  little  of  that  time  allowance  they'd 
been  talking  to  us  about  for  several  centu 
ries." 

Noah  lapsed  into  a  musing  silence,  and 
Barn  urn  rose  to  leave. 

"I  still  wish  you'd  saved  a  Discosau- 
rus,"  he  said.  "A  creature  with  a  neck 
twenty-two  feet  long  would  have  been  a 
gold  mine  to  me.  He  could  have  been 
trained  to  stand  in  the  ring,  and  by  stretch 
ing  out  his  neck  bite  the  little  boys  who 
sneak  in  under  the  tent  and  occupy  seats 
on  the  top  row." 

"  Well,  for  your  sake,"  said  Noah,  with 
a  smile,  "  I'm  very  sorry ;  but  for  my  own, 
I'm  quite  satisfied  with  the  general  re 
sults." 

And  they  all  agreed  that  the  patriarch 
had  every  reason  to  be  pleased  with  him 
self. 


XII 

THE    HOUSE-BOAT   DISAPPEARS 

QUEEN  ELIZABETH,  attended  by  Ophe 
lia  and  Xanthippe,  was  walking  along  the 
river-bank.  It  was  a  beautiful  autumn  day, 
although,  owing  to  certain  climatic  peculi 
arities  of  Hades,  it  seemed  more  like  mid 
summer.  The  mercury  in  the  club  ther 
mometer  was  nervously  clicking  against 
the  top  of  the  crystal  tube,  and  poor  Cer 
berus  was  having  all  he  could  do  with  his 
three  mouths  snapping  up  the  pestiferous 
little  shades  of  by-gone  gnats  that  seemed 
to  take  an  almost  unholy  pleasure  in  alight 
ing  upon  his  various  noses  and  ears. 

Ophelia  was  doing  most  of  the  talk 
ing. 

"  I  am  sure  I  have  never  wished  to  ride 
one  of  them,"  she  said,  positively.  "  In 
the  first  place,  I  do  not  see  where  the  pleas- 


THE   FAIR   STROLLERS 


THE    HOUSE-BOAT    DISAPPEARS  157 

ure  of  it  comes  in,  and,  in  the  second,  it 
seems  to  me  as  if  skirts  must  be  danger 
ous.  If  they  should  catch  in  one  of  the 
pedals,  where  would  I  be  ?" 

"  In  the  hospital  shortly,  methinks," 
said  Queen  Elizabeth. 

"  Well,  I  shouldn't  wear  skirts,"  snapped 
Xanthippe.  "  If  a  man's  wife  can't  borrow 
some  of  her  husband's  clothing  to  reduce 
her  peril  to  a  minimum,  what  is  the  use  of 
having  a  husband  ?  When  I  take  to  the 
bicycle,  which,  in  spite  of  all  Socrates  can 
say,  I  fully  intend  to  do,  I  shall  have  a 
man's  wheel,  and  I  shall  wear  Socrates'  old 
dress-clothes.  If  Hades  doesn't  like  it, 
Hades  may  suffer." 

"I  don't  see  how  Socrates'  clothes  will 
help  you,"  observed  Ophelia.  "  He  wore 
skirts  himself,  just  like  all  the  other  old 
Greeks.  His  toga  would  be  quite  as  apt 
to  catch  in  the  gear  as  your  skirts." 

Xanthippe  looked  puzzled  for  a  moment. 
It  was  evident  that  she  had  not  thought  of 
the  point  which  Ophelia  had  brought  up — 
strong-minded  ladies  of  her  kind  are  apt 


158  A   HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

sometimes  to  overlook  important  links  in 
such  chains  of  evidence  as  they  feel  called 
upon  to  use  in  binding  themselves  to  their 
rights. 

"  The  women  of  your  day  were  relieved 
of  that  dress  problem,  at  any  rate,"  laughed 
Queen  Elizabeth. 

"  The  women  of  my  day,"  retorted  Xan 
thippe,  "  in  matters  of  dress  were  the  equals 
of  their  husbands  —  in  my  family  particu 
larly;  now  they  have  lost  their  rights,  and 
are  made  to  confine  themselves  still  to  gar 
ments  like  those  of  yore,  while  man  has 
arrogated  to  himself  the  sole  and  exclusive 
use  of  sane  habiliments.  However,  that  is 
apart  from  the  question.  I  was  saying 
that  I  shall  have  a  man's  wheel,  and  shall 
wear  Socrates'  old  dress -clothes  to  ride  it 
in,  if  Socrates  has  to  go  out  and  buy  an 
old  dress-suit  for  the  purpose." 

The  Queen  arched  her  brows  and  looked 
inquiringly  at  Xanthippe  for  a  moment. 

"A  magnificent  old  maid  was  lost  to  the 
world  when  you  married,"  she  said.  "Feel 
ing  as  you  do  about  men,  my  dear  Xan 


THE    HOUSE-BOAT    DISAPPEARS  169 

thippe,  I  don't  see  why  you  ever  took  a 
husband." 

"  Humph  !"  retorted  Xanthippe.  "  Of 
course  you  don't.  You  didn't  need  a  hus 
band.  You  were  born  with  something  to 
govern.  I  wasn't." 

"  How  about  your  temper  ?"  suggested 
Ophelia,  meekly. 

Xanthippe  sniffed  frigidly  at  this  re 
mark. 

"  I  never  should  have  gone  crazy  over  a 
man  if  I'd  remained  unmarried  forty  thou 
sand  years,"  she  retorted,  severely.  "  I 
married  Socrates  because  I  loved  him  and 
admired  his  sculpture;  but  when  he  gave 
up  sculpture  and  became  a  thinker  he  sim 
ply  tried  me  beyond  all  endurance,  he  was 
so  thoughtless,  with  the  result  that,  hav 
ing  ventured  once  or  twice  to  show  my 
natural  resentment,  I  have  been  handed 
down  to  posterity  as  a  shrew.  I've  never 
complained,  and  I  don't  complain  now ;  but 
when  a  woman  is  married  to  a  philosopher 
who  is  so  taken  up  with  his  studies  that 
when  he  rises  in  the  morning  he  doesn't 


160  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

look  what  he  is  doing,  and  goes  off  to  his 
business  in  his  wife's  clothes,  I  think  she  is 
entitled  to  a  certain  amount  of  sympa 
thy." 

"And  yet  you  wish  to  wear  his,"  per 
sisted  Ophelia. 

"Turn  about  is  fair-play,"  said  Xan 
thippe.  "  I've  suffered  so  much  on  his  ac 
count  that  on  the  principle  of  averages  he 
deserves  to  have  a  little  drop  of  bitters  in 
his  nectar." 

"  You  are  simply  the  victim  of  man's  de 
ceit,"  said  Elizabeth,  wishing  to  mollify 
the  now  angry  Xanthippe,  who  was  on  the 
verge  of  tears.  "  I  understood  men,  fort 
unately,  and  so  never  married.  I  knew 
my  father,  and  even  if  I  hadn't  been  a  wise 
enough  child  to  know  him,  I  should  not 
have  wed,  because  he  married  enough  to 
last  one  family  for  several  years." 

"You  must  have  had  a  hard  time  refus 
ing  all  those  lovely  men,  though,"  sighed 
Ophelia.  "  Of  course,  Sir  Walter  wasn't 
as  handsome  as  my  dear  Hamlet,  but  he 
was  very  fetching." 


THE    HOUSE-BOAT    DISAPPEARS  161 

"  I  cannot  deny  that,"  said  Elizabeth, 
"and  I  didn't  really  have  the  heart  to  say 
no  when  be  asked  me ;  but  I  did  tell  him 
that  if  he  married  me  I  should  not  become 
Mrs.  Raleigh,  but  that  he  should  become 
King  Elizabeth.  He  fled  to  Virginia  on 
the  next  steamer.  My  diplomacy  rid  me 
of  a  very  unpleasant  duty." 

Chatting  thus,  the  three  famous  spirits 
passed  slowly  along  the  path  until  they 
came  to  the  sheltered  nook  in  which  the 
house-boat  lay  at  anchor. 

"  There's  a  case  in  point,"  said  Xanthip 
pe,  as  the  house  -  boat  loomed  up  before 
them.  "All  that  luxury  is  for  men  ;  we 
women  are  not  permitted  to  cross  the  gang 
plank.  Our  husbands  and  brothers  and 
friends  go  there ;  the  door  closes  on  them, 
and  they  are  as  completely  lost  to  us  as 
though  they  never  existed.  We  don't 
know  what  goes  on  in  there.  Socrates 
tells  me  that  their  amusements  are  of  a 
most  innocent  nature,  but  how  do  I  know 
what  he  means  by  that  ?  Furthermore,  it 

keeps  him  from  home,  while  I  have  to  stay 
11 


i62  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

at  home  and  be  entertained  by  my  sons, 
whom  the  Encyclopaedia  Britannica  right 
ly  calls  dull  and  fatuous.  In  other  words, 
club  life  for  him,  and  dulness  and  fatuity 
for  me." 

"  I  think  myself  they're  rather  queer  about 
letting  women  into  that  boat,"  said  Queen 
Elizabeth.  "  But  it  isn't  Sir  Walter's  fault. 
He  told  me  he  tried  to  have  them  establish 
.a  Ladies'  Day,  and  that  they  agreed  to  do 
.so,  but  have  since  resisted  all  his  efforts  to 
have  a  date  set  for  the  function." 

"  It  would  be  great  fun  to  steal  in  there 
now,  wouldn't  it,"  giggled  Ophelia.  "There 
•doesn't  seem  to  be  anybody  about  to  pre 
vent  our  doing  so." 

"That's  true,"  said  Xanthippe.  "All 
the  windows  are  closed,  as  if  there  wasn't 
.a  soul  there.  I've  half  a  mind  to  take  a 
peep  in  at  the  house." 

"  I  am  with  you,"  said  Elizabeth,  her 
face  lighting  up  with  pleasure.  It  was  a 
great  novelty,  and  an  unpleasant  one  to 
her,  to  find  some  place  where  she  could 
not  go.  "  Let's  do  it,"  she  added. 


THE    HOUSE-BOAT    DISAPPEARS  16S 

So  the  three  women  tiptoed  softly  up 
the  gang-plank,  and,  silently  boarding  the 
house -boat,  peeped  in  at  the  windows. 
What  they  saw  merely  whetted  their  curi 
osity. 

"  I  must  see  more,"  cried  Elizabeth,  rush 
ing  around  to  the  door,  which  opened  at 
her  touch.  Xanthippe  and  Ophelia  fol 
lowed  close  on  her  heels,  and  shortly  they 
found  themselves,  open-mouthed  in  won 
dering  admiration,  in  the  billiard-room  of 
the  floating  palace,  and  Richard,  the  ghost 
of  the  best  billiard-room  attendant  in  or 
out  of  Hades,  stood  before  them. 

"  Excuse  me,"  he  said,  very  much  upset 
by  the  sudden  apparition  of  the  ladies. 
"  I'm  very  sorry,  but  ladies  are  not  admit 
ted  here." 

"  We  are  equally  sorry,"  retorted  Eliza 
beth,  assuming  her  most  imperious  manner, 
"  that  your  masters  have  seen  fit  to  prohibit 
our  being  here ;  but,  now  that  we  are  here,  we 
intend  to  make  the  most  of  the  opportunity, 
particularly  as  there  seem  to  be  no  members 
about.  What  has  become  of  them  all  ?" 


164  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

Richard  smiled  broadly.  "  I  don't  know 
where  they  are,"  he  replied;  but  it  was 
evident  that  he  was  not  telling  the  exact 
truth. 

"  Oh,  come,  my  boy,"  said  the  Queen, 
kindly,  "  you  do  know.  Sir  Walter  told 
me  you  knew  everything.  Where  are 
they  ?" 

"  Well,  if  you  must  know,  ma'am,"  re 
turned  Richard,  captivated  by  the  Queen's 
manner,  "  they've  all  gone  down  the  river 
to  see  a  prize-fight  between  Goliath  and 
Samson." 

"  See  there!"  cried  Xanthippe.  "  That's 
what  this  club  makes  possible.  Socrates 
told  me  he  was  coming  here  to  take  lunch 
eon  with  Carlyle,  and  they've  both  of  'em 
gone  off  to  a  disgusting  prize-fight !" 

"  Yes,  ma'am,  they  have,"  said  Richard  ; 
"and  if  Goliath  wins,  I  don't  think  Mr. 
Socrates  will  get  home  this  evening." 

"  Betting,  eh  ?"  said  Xanthippe,  scorn 
fully. 

"  Yes,  ma'am,"  returned  Richard. 

"More  club  !"  cried  Xanthippe. 


THE    HOUSE-BOAT    DISAPPEARS  165 

"  Oh  no,  ma'am,"  said  Richard.  "  Bet 
ting  is  not  allowed  in  the  club  ;  they're 
very  strict  about  that.  But  the  shore  is 
only  ten  feet  off,  ma'am,  and  the  gentle 
men  always  go  ashore  and  make  their 
bets." 

During  this  little  colloquy  Elizabeth  and 
Ophelia  were  wandering  about,  admiring 
everything  they  saw. 

"  I  do  wish  Lucretia  Borgia  and  Calpur- 
nia  could  see  this.  I  wonder  if  the  Caesars 
are  on  the  telephone,"  Elizabeth  said.  In 
vestigation  showed  that  both  the  Borgias 
and  the  Caesars  were  on  the  wire,  and  in 
short  order  the  two  ladies  had  been  made 
acquainted  with  the  state  of  affairs  at  the 
house-boat ;  and  as  they  were  both  quite 
as  anxious  to  see  the  interior  of  the  much- 
talked -of  club-house  as  the  others,  they 
were  not  long  in  arriving.  Furthermore, 
they  brought  with  them  half  a  dozen  more 
ladies,  among  whom  were  Desdemona  and 
Cleopatra,  and  then  began  the  most  ex 
traordinary  session  the  house -boat  ever 
knew.  A  meeting  was  called,  with  Eliz- 


166  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

abeth  in  the  chair,  and  all  the  best  ladies 
of  the  Stygian  realms  were  elected  mem 
bers.  Xanthippe,  amid  the  greatest  ap 
plause,  moved  that  every  male  member  of 
the  organization  be  expelled  for  conduct 
unworthy  of  a  gentleman  in  attending  a 
prize-fight,  and  encouraging  two  such  hor 
rible  creatures  as  Goliath  and  Samson  in 
their  nefarious  pursuits.  Desdemona  sec 
onded  the  motion,  and  it  was  carried  with 
out  a  dissenting  voice,  although  Mrs.  Cae 
sar,  with  becoming  dignity,  merely  smiled 
approval,  not  caring  to  take  part  too  ac 
tively  in  the  proceedings. 

The  men  having  thus  been  disposed  of 
in  a  summary  fashion,  Richard  was  elect 
ed  Janitor  in  Charon's  place,  and  the  club 
was  entirely  reorganized,  with  Cleopatra 
as  permanent  President.  The  meeting  then 
adjourned,  and  the  invaders  set  about  en 
joying  their  newly  acquired  privileges. 
The  smoking-room  was  thronged  for  a 
few  moments,  but  owing  to  the  extraor 
dinary  strength  of  the  tobacco  which  the 
faithful  Richard  shovelled  into  the  fur- 


THE    HOUSE-BOAT    DISAPPEARS  167 

nace,  it  developed  no  enduring  popularity, 
Xanthippe,  with  a  suddenly  acquired  pal 
lor,  being  the  first  to  renounce  the  pastime 
as  revolting. 

So  fast  and  furious  was  the  enjoyment 
of  these  thirsty  souls,  so  long  deprived  of 
their  rights,  that  night  came  on  without 
their  observing  it,  and  with  the  night  was 
brought  the  great  peril  into  which  they 
were  thrown,  and  from  which  at  the  mo 
ment  of  writing  they  had  not  been  extri 
cated,  and  which,  to  my  regret,  has  cut  me 
off  for  the  present  from  any  further  in 
formation  connected  with  the  Associated 
Shades  and  their  beautiful  loungiug-place. 
Had  they  not  been  so  intent  upon  the  in 
ner  beauties  of  the  House-boat  on  the  Styx 
they  might  have  observed  approaching,  un 
der  the  shadow  of  the  westerly  shore,  a 
long,  rakish  craft  propelled  by  oars,  which 
dipped  softly  and  silently  and  with  trained 
precision  in  the  now  jet-black  waters  of 
the  Styx.  Manning  the  oars  were  a  dozen 
evil-visaged  ruffians,  while  in  the  stern  of 
the  approaching  vessel  there  sat  a  grim- 


168  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

faced,  weather-beaten  spirit,  armed  to  the 
teeth,  his  coat  sleeves  bearing  the  skull 
and  cross-bones,  the  insignia  of  piracy. 

This  boat,  stealing  up  the  river  like  a 
thief  in  the  night,  contained  Captain  Kidd 
and  his  pirate  crew,  and  their  mission  was 
a  mission  of  vengeance.  To  put  the  mat 
ter  briefly  and  plainly,  Captain  Kidd  was 
smarting  under  the  indignity  which  the 
club  had  recently  put  upon  him.  He  had 
been  unanimously  blackballed,  even  his 
proposer  and  seconder,  who  had  been  brow 
beaten  into  nominating  him  for  member 
ship,  voting  against  him. 

"  I  may  be  a  pirate,"  he  cried,  when  he 
heard  what  the  club  had  done,  "but  I  have 
feelings,  and  the  Associated  Shades  will 
repent  their  action.  The  time  will  come 
when  they'll  find  that  I  have  their  club 
house,  and  they  have — its  debts." 

It  was  for  this  purpose  that  the  great 
terror  of  the  seas  had  come  upon  this,  the 
first  favorable  opportunity.  Kidd  knew 
that  the  house-boat  was  unguarded  ;  his 
spies  had  told  him  that  the  members  had 


"IT  WAS  CAPTAIN  KIDD  AND  HIS  PIRATE  CREW" 


THE    HOUSE-BOAT    DISAPPEARS  169 

every  one  gone  to  the  fight,  and  he  re 
solved  that  the  time  had  come  to  act.  He 
did  not  know  that  the  Fates  had  helped  to 
make  his  vengeance  all  the  more  terrible 
and  withering  by  putting  the  most  attract 
ive  and  fashionable  ladies  of  the  Stygian 
country  likewise  in  his  power  ;  but  so  it 
was,  and  they,  poor  souls,  while  this  fiend, 
relentless  and  cruel,  was  slowly  approach 
ing,  sang  on  and  danced  on  in  blissful  un 
consciousness  of  their  peril. 

In  less  than  five  minutes  from  the  time 
wnen  his  sinister  craft  rounded  the  bend 
Kidd  and  his  crew  had  boarded  the  house 
boat,  cut  her  loose  from  her  moorings,  and 
in  ten  minutes  she  had  sailed  away  into 
the  great  unknown,  and  with  her  went 
some  of  the  most  precious  gems  in  the  so 
cial  diadem  of  Hades. 

The  rest  of  my  story  is  soon  told.  The 
whole  country  was  aroused  when  the  crime 
was  discovered,  but  up  to  the  date  of  this 
narrative  no  word  has  been  received  of 
the  missing  craft  and  her  precious  cargo. 
Raleigh  and  Caesar  have  had  the  seas 


170  A    HOUSE-BOAT    ON    THE    STYX 

scoured  in  search  of  her,  Hamlet  has  of 
fered  his  kingdom  for  her  return,  but  un- 
availingly  ;  and  the  men  of  Hades  were 
cast  into  a  gloom  from  which  there  seems 
to  be  no  relief. 

Socrates  alone  was  unaffected. 

"They'll  come  back  some  day,  my  dear 
Raleigh,"  he  said,  as  the  knight  buried  his 
face,  weeping,  in  his  hands.  "  So  why  re 
pine  ?  I'll  never  lose  my  Xanthippe — per 
manently,  that  is.  I  know  that,  for  I  am 
a  philosopher,  and  I  know  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  luck.  And  we  can  start  another 
club." 

"Very  likely,"  sighed  Raleigh,  wiping 
his  eyes.  "  I  don't  mind  the  club  so  much, 
but  to  think  of  those  poor  women — " 

"  Oh,  they're  all  right,"  returned  Socra 
tes,  with  a  laugh.  "  Caesar's  wife  is  along, 
and  you  can't  dispute  the  fact  that  she's  a 
good  chaperon.  Give  the  ladies  a  chance. 
They've  been  after  our  club  for  years;  now 
let  'em  have  it,  and  let  us  hope  that  they 
like  it.  Order  me  up  a  hemlock  sour,  and 
let's  drink  to  their  enjoyment  of  club  life." 


THE    HOUSE-BOAT    DISAPPEAE8  171 

Which  was  done,  and  I,  in  spirit,  drank 
with  them,  for  I  sincerely  hope  that  the 
"New  Women"  of  Hades  are  having  a 
good  time. 


THE  END 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


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